Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Life Is an Adventure.

Luke Skywalker bothers me.

Sometimes, in life, we are required to rapidly shift our paradigm. I do not believe that Luke thought, "Oh, I'm going to set in motion a journey today that will radically change the political surface of the galaxy, as well as infuse life into a dying religion and reunite me with my lost twin sister." And yet, that Tatooine morning, he went to buy androids from the Jawas, and the day after, never did get to the Tosche station to pick up those power converters. He didn't need to.

His paradigm shifted.

Welcome to life, Luke.

I could understand giving Luke a reasonable amount of emotional space in which to mourn the death of his aunt and uncle who raised him --- but he doesn't do that. Instead, he spends a quantifiably huge amount of time complaining about how hard his pursuit of Jediism is, and how he "just doesn't understand."

No one understands. Heck, Obi-Wan obviously doesn't understand, either. You don't hear him kvetching incessantly. He's been living a happy little hermit life (let's be honest, hermits have it made), and suddenly some punk kid shows up and roots him out of his comfortable little hut in the golden age of his life. Luke had been obviously angsting up the moisture farm for some time, desiring a radical change, and yet, he is so resistant to that change when it comes.

Perhaps we are all a little like Luke, but you don't see George Lucas making a film about me, either. Yes, life is fluid: in flux (I seriously love that word). As Gandolf puts it, in response to Frodo's lament of "I wish none of this had happened!" (a reasonable exclamation, considering the circumstance): "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Similarly, The Book of the Dead inquired of Lirael (In Garth Nix's novel by her name): "Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker?"

We make choices all the time, but how consciously do we choose how we deal with the choices which are made for us? Perhaps that is the real difference between those who are happy, and those who are --well-- miserable. I'm not sure that there is a middle ground. We pass through times of trial and stress, constantly. We pass through times of happiness and joy, only upon our deliberate choosing.

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