I'm not shy about my admiration for the show Battlestar Galactica. I think it's the best show on television. It portrays the experience of humanity better than any more "realistic" show I've ever seen. Everything from the most epic and heartbreaking to the smallest personal story. Last week's episode ("Sine Qua Non") had one storyline in particular that hit home. ***SPOILER ALERT*** just in case you watch the show and haven't seen the last few episodes. At the end of the last episode ("Guess What's Coming to Dinner?") President Roslin was abducted on a Cylon ship. Now the fleet is dealing with the after effects. It hit Admiral Adama particularly hard. There's always been something of an unspoken relationship between him and Laura Roslin. When things seem to just be getting worse as Adama recklessly searches for her he has a conversation with a lawyer (Romo Lampkin) who lives in the fleet. Lampkin brings up the legal term, sine qua non, but he applies it to Adama's feelings in an interesting way,

Lampkin: I've always imagined you were a realist, Admiral, not one to indulge a vain hope at the cost of lives. But then, everyone has his limits. "Sine qua non", as they say.
Adama: Without which not.
Lampkin: Yes. Those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living. Without which life in general loses its specific value, becomes abstract.

Instead of just using in the strictest sense, Lampkin has turned the phrase into something else. It encapsulates the idea that we all have certain things that without which we're not. That there are some things that make life worth living, and without them life is meaningless. Later we're to find out that the reason he feels this way is that he, like almost everyone in the fleet, has lost everything. His entire family, everyone he ever knew or loved is dead, killed during the Cylon attacks on the colonies. Only he blames himself. Instead of trying to go back and help them at the risk of his own life, he ran away, saving himself. His guilt has gone so far that he's been carrying around his wife's dead cat in an attache case. He just can't get rid of it, it's the only thing he has left from that life. He's a broken man since he lost that without which he can't bear it.

Only the thing is, he survived. Even without the thing which he thought he couldn't go on, he's still there. And that's really what the show's about. Survival. Every single character has survived things more terrible than anyone could have imagined. They've lost everything and are still just hanging on, trying to make it through every day. There's always this sense of loss, of something that should be there that just isn't ever coming back.

It's a strangely hopeful message. As of late I can say that I've felt very much like Lampkin, that I've lost one of my sine qua non (yes, I did just nounize that phrase) and yet I'm still standing, when I really shouldn't be. This isn't to say that it hasn't been touch and go, but only to say that I haven't collapsed yet. It seems that there's really something to see in these characters. They don't ever get over their loss, but they don't stop functioning either. They still wake up everyday, do the hard thing and struggle. Because the only other choice is to lay down and die. I don't know if I have the same level of courage, but I'm trying. Not always completely succeeding, but still trying.