I guess I don't get it. Sorry.

My wife asked me to explain what it was that made me give up hope, made me care so little about myself. I explained it like this:

When I was in high-school, I was like a young squire. I was told over and over that if I believed strongly enough and wished hard enough, that I would be chosen by a knight and then become a knight myself. So I worked hard and when the time came ... I wasn't chosen. (I couldn't get any scholarships even though I was top of my class.)

So I paid for an apprenticeship (student loans) and managed to gain my knighthood that way. Okay, it was a small setback, but was I was ready. I had my armor (confidence) and weapons (education) and was ready for battle. So I offered my services to the king ... and then another king ... and then a prince ... then a duke ... finally I found a land-owner that would take me. (A small private company finally hired me after I had 2 degrees.)

So I grabbed my weapons and went into the fray. They told me that if I fought valiantly enough, I would get an army to fight alongside me. After a year of constant battle I looked around to find I was alone and it was my own boss sending the beasts against me.

I found another kingdom to defend, but with the same results. Over and over I fought until I looked around to see myself alone on the battlefield facing odds that were impossible to overcome. I was even marked as wanted for protecting people against the wishes of the kings. (I was working 80+ hours per week and getting laid off for stopping projects that would kill people.)

I dropped my broken sword and my armor was already useless. I couldn't fight anymore, it wasn't worth it. There was no army coming to help, there was no glory or riches. I was prosecuted for doing what was right and barely made enough money to get by. (By my last engineering job, I was a ten year veteran in charge of the largest system on the largest gas turbines on the planet and finally made as much as the guys in the shop who worked half as many hours as I did.)


So yeah, I don't get it. Piccard's successes were huge (as far as the series goes ). I mean ... he was friggin' Piccard after all. How's it supposed to work for us mucky-mucks?