That episode of Battlestar Galactica

Where there's a food shortage and Athena goes on an exploratory mission and finds a planet that has algae, but the planet is located on the far side of a star cluster that would take too long to go around, because the fleet would starve to death in that time, so the only option is to go through it. But the cluster is saturated with radiation and the ships aren't protected against exposure.

Spoiler alert: Kat dies. Because she's the only one who stays inside the ring of radiation for too long. It's sad even though we don't much like Kat. And she was an apt character to get caught on the inside too long and die as a result of it.

I think about the ring of radiation quite a bit. This inexorable need to journey right into the center of things, and the uncertain thresholds that require crossing to get within. This is in part because predictably, I like on-the-nose metaphors. But this particular one feels personal, tailored to my own psyche. I dream of the ring of radiation. To get caught within the ring, on the journey in, or out, is life-threatening. But the crossing over is unavoidable. To stay within means a certain insanity, an inability to acknowledge the material reality of the world. It is entrapment within yourself, within your own mind. But to stay on the outside is another kind of death altogether, the death of something deeper within you. So I make this journey often, sometimes several times a day. We all do. Does this make us interlopers on the various parts of our lives or migrants with dual homes?

This reminds me of a Jewish tradition that a college roommate told me about - to give someone a dollar everytime they are about to embark on a journey. The dollar is to be handed to someone in need once the person arrives at his or her destination. The idea that you are protected as long as you are doing God's work.

To expand, or maybe merely restate the metaphor - it is our own work, but I can't say I don't worry about the journey. I worry about the threshold of radiation and hope that I can seamlessly make it in and out as many times as my life can hold.