Listening to Vulcan Hello recently, Scott said something that my brain found very sticky while discussing why a ninja-nun character (on Star Trek) went on a murderous robbery spree:

She had to take her excellent but limited skillset and apply it to this problem

I love this — excellent but limited. This character was really good at killing people with swords, and when faced with a problem she needed to solve, this limited skillset was what she had available. No matter how excellent this skillset was, it was never going to solve the problem … cleanly. Had she been a little more skilled at making persuasive phone calls, or something similar, she probably could have handled the situation with less loss of life, but that’s not a choice she was able to make.

We may not all be ninja warrior nuns, but I think this is a (the??) universal life experience — solving problems with our own limited (hopefully excellent, occasionally) skillset. I think you can view anyone’s actions through this lens and gain at least some insight into what is driving their choices.

Here’s the clip from the podcast:

— Vulcan Hello - Episode 34, Discovery S4E3: “Choose to Live”