Defying Logic

Only a supergeek would know that Ambassador Spock married Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Saavik.

The wedding was only referred to once, in a Next Generations episode when Jean-Luc Picard mentions he attended Sarek’s son’s wedding.

Fans were left questioning whether the son in question was indeed Spock, or perhaps a brother. 

The actual wedding, a ritual bonding ceremony, was featured in the 2000 novel “Vulcan’s Heart” leaving fans sighing with relief that Spock would not grow old alone.

Where am I going with this?  

Well my highly convoluted thought process led me to question whether Spock would have bought Saavik a diamond engagement ring.  

If you have read this far, you’d likely know that Spock was born to a human mother and a very strict Vulcan father.  He was constantly torn between human emotional sentiments and the Vulcan ideology of pure logic.

The purchase of a diamond is simply “Illogical”.

Human appreciation of the diamond dates back more than 3,000 years when they were used to adorn religious artifacts in ancient India.  It’s name derives from the ancient Greek word adámas, meaning unbreakable.

It is believed that usage as a token to symbolize engagement between man and woman started to appear around the 15th Century with the first recorded appearance as an engagement ring occurring at the wedding of the Archduke of Austria and Mary of Burgundy in 1477 (ref. 1917. “Rings of the Finger” George Frederick).  As with many trends, it was big marketing by companies like De Beers in the early 20th Century that popularized the sentiment.

So what is it that makes us fork out on average 3 months salary on a purchase that is purely decorative? Why do we dig deep into our wallets to pay the extra premium for the VVS1 and not the VS2?  Could she even see that tiny inclusion?

Logic would dictate that money would be better spent on building a home, buying a family car, saving for exorbitant college fees – anything but buying a tiny stone that has no practical use except when getting hit on the head for the whiff of perfume infused into your suit when you come home “late” from work. And we often make that purchase when we are barely into our career.

Well, humans are not logical. We buy because she wants. It is almost a condition of acceptance. It represents a sacrifice we are willing to take, to win the heart of the one we love.  But ladies, do know that it hurts. We may pretend that the purchase will not impact our financial health, but it does. We’ll do it anyway because, well, to hell with logic, we love you.  

If you loved us, you might say

“You know what babe? Forget the ring, let’s put the money away for our future. You can always get me a ring once we settle down”.

We’d buy it anyway…

Dean Owen is the Co-Founder of Quimojo, Global Campus Recruitment