Satan and the Cybermen

So I’ve recently been re-watching pretty much all of Doctor Who with Garrett as he’s still catching up (four seasons in less than a month, that’s impressive). While watching a Season 2 (Tenth Doctor) episode, I had a thought come up. So, just so you’re aware, SPOILER ALERT for season 2.

  

In the two-part episode “Rise of the Cyberman”/”The Age of Steel”, one of the Doctor’s foes from the Classic Doctor Who series is re-introduced. Simply put, Cybermen are robotic humans. Literally. They literally take a human body and put it in a suit of metal. In addition, all emotion is eradicated or inhibited because it is seen as a weakness.

While watching the Cybermen take over London, I couldn’t help but think that Cybermen and their world paradigm is EXACTLY how life would have been under Satan’s plan. That was always the hard question in Sunday school growing up; why was Satan’s plan a bad idea? Why would we reject it? No pain, no death, no sin, and no troubles. Sounds like paradise doesn’t it? Well, after watching the Cybermen… yeah, I can’t quite say that.

One of the goals of the Cybermen is to remove pain (physically, emotionally, etc.), eliminate death, and stop hardship. However, in doing that everyone becomes exactly the same. That’s how I imagine Satan’s plan. Uniform, emotionless, painless, and loveless. No differences in any regard. No variety. Nothing to stretch for. Nothing to strive for.

Something that bothers me about cultural Mormons is the idea that if someone is different in any way, they’re a sinner. This is totally bogus! Just a few weeks ago in General Conference, President Uchtdorf said this during Priesthood Session:

“But while the Atonement is meant to help us all become more like Christ, it is not meant to make us all the same. Sometimes we confuse differences in personality with sin. We can even make the mistake of thinking that because someone is different from us, it must mean they are not pleasing to God. This line of thinking leads some to believe that the Church wants to create every member from a single mold—that each one should look, feel, think, and behave like every other. This would contradict the genius of God, who created every man different from his brother, every son different from his father. Even identical twins are not identical in their personalities and spiritual identities.” (April 2013, “Four Titles”)

As much as I love BYU, sometimes the culture here can come across like this. We have to put on a face. We have to have no struggles. We have to be “perfect Mormons” because we’re at “the Lord’s university”. We have to date. We have to get married. We have to have families. Sadly, not everyone can fit that mold. Nor would I want everyone to fit that mold. We all have struggles. We all have things we’re working on, be it something as “small” as being thoughtless with our words or as “big” as a pornography addiction. We all feel pain. Pain is okay. Pain is good. Recently a friend of mine told me that he had a boyfriend. My heart broke. It seemed to be making him happy… but even he recognized there was an expiration date on that relationship, be in during life or at the end of life. Sure, it would have been easier as a Cyberman; the heart break hurt a lot. However, the pain told me how much I cared for my friend. Heart break is a sign that we have loved. If it didn’t hurt when someone we love goes off the gospel path, when a family member passes away, or when a dear friend moves far away, how much did we really care?

During another Season 2 episode of Doctor Who “School Reunion”, the Doctor’s former companion Sarah Jane Smith says this: “Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love, whether it’s a world or a relationship.” I love that. Pain and loss define us as much as happiness or love. If I had not been teased, excluded, and hurt during middle school and high school, would I be able to appreciate my best friend Garrett? If I had never been hurt and teased, how could I be caring and sympathetic to those around me?

I’ve read a quote that I’ve been unable to find a source for, but I think it describes some of my feelings here: “The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.”

The scriptures also teach this principle: “And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” (D&C 122:7)

Satan’s plan, like the Cybermen’s plans, would have removed pain, hurt, and sin, but it would have also removed love, happiness, and joy. It gives me a new sense of understanding of Lehi’s counsel to his son, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.” (2 Nephi 2:11)

The Almost-Invisible Alien

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANY DOCTOR WHO FANS!!! I’m going to be talking about a Season 5 (Eleventh Doctor) episode today.

The episode features the Doctor and Amy, his companion, traveling back to nineteenth century France to meet Vincent van Gogh and take care of an alien he’d painted in a church. Whilst taking care of the alien, the Doctor finds van Gogh having an emotional breakdown that very much reminded me of my experiences with depression. Though there is no consensus about what van Gogh’s mental disorder was, the writers of Doctor Who portray it as a bipolar disorder. As I watched the episode, van Gogh mourning his loneliness, misery, and hopelessness, I was reminded of my own episodes of depression, feeling that I have no hope and I eventually all those close to me will leave me. Yet I can also relate to how only a little while later, van Gogh had cried it out and was a happy person again. He says that occasionally he’d be tormented by those moods, but then suddenly he’d be okay. Sometimes I feel like I can go days or weeks at a time feeling completely happy… and then an episode hits and I’m upset for a day, a few days, a week, or who knows how long. It wasn’t until the end of the episode when the Doctor takes van Gogh to the present day and he sees a museum full of his own work that he believes his life was worth something.

Depression, bipolar, and other mental disorders are a huge trial for many. One source I looked at said that about 10% of the US adult population deals with depression. Another statistic said that about 2.6% of the population deals with bipolar. Another thing I want to touch on here is suicide. Like van Gogh eventually took his life, there are many that feel mortality is too painful and so they take their own life to ease the pain. One website told me that in 2010 it was reported that there were 38,364 deaths in the United States. The same website says that 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable and treatable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death. And what about the other 10%? Does that mean that that 10% without a diagnosable disorder could have been helped? Perhaps saved?

Back in the 1980s, Elder Ballard said about suicide, “Obviously, we do not know the full circumstances surrounding every suicide. Only the Lord knows all the details, and he it is who will judge our actions here on earth. When he does judge us, I feel he will take all things into consideration: our genetic and chemical makeup, our mental state, our intellectual capacity, the teachings we have received, the traditions of our fathers, our health, and so forth.”

Recently, a member of the North Star Facebook group shared an experience related to suicide (and I share this story with his permission). His son’s best friend committed suicide. This man’s son was in tears the whole night, trying to make sense of the incident. I’m tempted to put up an LGBT suicide stat, but as relevant as that is, it really isn’t. It’s not about someone’s sexuality or lifestyle. It’s about showing love to everyone around you, like Christ would.

It’s important to show love to those around us, because as the saying goes “everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” but oftentimes we can’t see that. Like in the Doctor Who episode, the alien is invisible to all except van Gogh. He’s labeled as crazy and mad. Even when the Doctor and Amy try to help him with the alien, they’re left pretty helpless because the only person who can see it clearly is van Gogh. It is just like depression and other mental illnesses. I have felt many times like I am fighting an alien that only I can see.

There is help though. If you are struggling with depression, bipolar, or another mental illness, see a doctor or see a psychiatrist. All else fails, call this number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. Human life is too precious to give up so easily. Keep trying. No matter how many times you fall, keep trying, because you’ll make it to eternal life if you just keep trying to keep the commandments.