more of us men should be like him and who he was and what he stood for

Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of people around me who could show me what a good person was supposed to be like. So I found those elsewhere. In games and in Star Trek. To me, Jean-Luc Picard was probably the closest thing I had to a proper father figure.

He embodied everything I felt a person should aspire to be. Intelligent, thoughtful, but also compassionate, principled.

He taught me that you could exercise authority without cruelty, resolve conflict without violence, understood that strength wasn’t about dominating others, but about having the wisdom and restraint not to.

He taught me that you could be rational without being cold, that you could lead without humiliating others, and that kindness and competence weren’t opposites.

These weren’t just qualities I simply admired in a fictional character in a silly science fiction show. They were things I tried to build into myself. They were what I had.

I’m having a really hard time with this. I never know how to articulate how this feels, because I grew up with these role models and most of the people I know haven’t and it feels awkward.

You were a positive force. RIP