This one is a gut punch. I looked up to the character he portrayed, Captain Picard, with awe and reverence. He encapsulated everything that was good and optimistic about a future that feels today as though it is rapidly slipping away from us. We grew up in this world that felt like anything was possible; that things would inevitably only get better as human progress marched on and new technologies were created to solve problems, but just about everything in the post-9/11 world has pointed in the opposite direction, pushing back against that idea hard. That we’ll get a world with less freedom and more power and wealth accumulated in the few and powerful. It’s tough to be idealistic in a world that keeps rewarding selfishness, pessimism, and apathy. Everything that the Federation represents stands in opposition to the current state of things. I hope that things get better on this troubled planet, but today I’m just sad that we lost such a talented actor who brought us such a beautiful character through whose eyes we were empowered to glimpse, for just a moment, a world we’ll probably not live long enough to see.