Stardate: 70259.95

Posted on Mon 5th Aug, 2019 @ 10:25pm by Elizabeth Anderson M.D.

725 words; about a 4 minute read

Personal Log Entry.

A starbase is different from a starship. I didn't realize exactly how different until the last week or two. I've established a routine here in Tivoli Gardens. Clients come and go at regular intervals, some of the civilians and some Starfleet officers trying to keep their need for counseling off the records.

I had the opinion that counseling was an accepted treatment for Starfleet, but several officers have informed me that the practice is less accepting than the rhetoric. One even pointed out that no one wanted a nut case in charge of safety, security, medical, engineering, or almost any other task that needs to be done on a starbase. My exception is to the term nut case. Take that out, and it becomes normal for anyone to have a need for help and to get it. I've been informed by a few who don't know me that I'm an optimistic fool ... two things it would be quite difficult for artificial intelligence to claim.

I'm talking around what I need to record here, however, so let me get to it. I haven't seen Damion in over a week. I had a brief message of two, but he's quite busy, presumably with the case he told me a little about ... Zelda Alegari and her multiple personalities. I think that's the right name. We barely got into the discussion, and then I didn't hear anything more. I had expected to be called on for the woman, but, of course, Starfleet has Dr. Graves, a perfectly capable biological counselor.

Damion mentioned that he had personally seen three personalities, and suspected at least one more, possibly two. I could bewail the fact that as a civilian now, I am not part of such an exciting case, but I won't. For one thing, I'm not feeling any envy at all. Multiple personalities are very difficult cases. If the woman wanted or needed my help, of course I would help in any way I could, but I'm not missing the opportunity to see this up close, to be involved in it. I have no need to publish, since I have no plan to be someone important in psychology, someone at the front of the pack. It's quite freeing not to have those goals.

I've wondered whether it shows that my growth potential is limited; that I don't want to push myself out there, I mean. I've decided it doesn't. It it as it is, and I accept that there is a certain ... concern about how the Federation would behave should I become well known as a holographic artificial intelligence. I can't call it a fear, because I'm not afraid. Fear for myself has not yet shown up, though I was a little fearful for Damion at one point. I don't want to lose what we have, whatever that is. I'm not trying to label it or quantify it or classify it. I'm only trying to keep it. Hmmm, I think that's almost human logic!

And so I circle back to not having seen Damion this week. My feelings ... it seems odd still to use that word in reference to myself, but there are certain classes of feelings which have developed ... perhaps self-programmed into my logic matrix. So. My feelings for Damion are warm, close ... fondness ... perhaps more. I find myself backing away from any more, because I sense that Damion has the power to destroy me in every way that counts. Even one week on my own has left me feeling ... empty ... lost ... alone. I am searching for just the right words, and though there are hundreds of thousands of words in my database, I can never find THE word that describes the feelings I have.

Therefore, I must buck up, take heart, bounce back, be comforted, revive ... and so on. I am not a satellite. I am an individual who can take charge of my life, my purpose, and ha, ha, my database! There's a part of me that wishes to go backward, to the time when I didn't feel anything, when human beings were an object of study, when I hadn't thought about things like creators, and gods and saviors, when I hadn't considered being more than what I knew I was. It was a time of innocence, and it was pain free.

End personal log.

 

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