I'm Alone but I'm not Lonely

Sometimes we walk with people. And other times we walk alone.
Whether we've been rejected by family or friends or society each of us has experienced the feeling of utter isolation and alienation from those around us. Thus, to me, space is an excellent setting and overall metaphor for the concept that, much as we may deny it, our lives are free-floating and vast and unpredictable as the cosmos we look up at during the night.

In the episode "Objects in Space" especially, the idea that out in deep space if the littlest thing goes wrong, a person can be lost forever. And never discovered, like he or she never existed at all.

Just...lost.

Each person on board Serenity has always struck me as being a lost wanderer. They are each a part of a group, but separate somehow as well. They connect, then withdraw. The desire each of them has to avoid being alone is often thwarted. Early's arrival on the shift only exacerbates this tendency toward separation when he locks each of them in their quarters. How can they fight without the support of the entire group? They are unsettled and frightened by their loss of control and connection to others. All appears lost.

But River, through the very function of her separates-ness and isolation (via being on board Early's ship and thus disconnected from the other ship members), manages to achieve, through the all-encompassing pa system of the ship, to unite and comfort the people who have become her de facto family, and, more importantly, exert control over her fate. Control everyone else on the ship attempts to take from her. As Hannah mentions in her blog post, River has developed a voice, one that refuses to be passive and silenced by others.

I don't usually cry during movies or shows. Only a select few have merited such an emotion. But when River says her "goodbyes" I almost lost it. To face the reality that she alone must govern her own body and choices and to accept the uncomfortable and hurtful actions of others with a forthright courage is something unusual and powerful. Thus River becomes the most powerful person in the episode. And she does it alone and of her own volition.

The episode ends with Early adrift in space saying softly "Well, here I am." He is calm, serene even, accepting of his fate to be suffocated until he is just an object floating around with so many other objects. He isn't any different from a cold space rock when his essence has been siphoned away. That is our fate as well. But like River discovers and demonstrates, we are the only ones in control of our attitudes and choices while we are still living. We have the choice to be like Early and hurt others in order to stem our own psychic pain of isolation and alienation, or we can act as River does, and make the choice to live in a consciously positive manner, to transcend our circumstances and the perception others have of us.

"I'll be fine...and I'll just fade away." --River Tam