I’ve been wanting to write a blog entry about this since 1977, but I didn’t have a blog back then. I didn’t have Internet back then. I didn’t have digital. I didn’t have diddly squat. I also didn’t realize how profound the movie series was in terms of lessons in life until I lived me some life.
I originally wanted to title this All I Need to Know I Learned From Watching Star Wars, ala Robert Fulghum’s book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, but let’s face it. I’m an eye surgeon. They didn’t teach me that in kindergarten. And while Han Solo was temporarily blind after being frozen in carbonite, they didn’t really teach me how to help him. So it’s really kind of an exaggeration or gross oversimplification to say that I learned EVERYTHING I need to know from either of those two sources.
And, as I prepared to rename this entry, I thought perhaps I should Google it, just on the outside chance that some other brilliant mind out there might have had the same idea. Someone did. Fie! May the Death Star use their site for target practice. But let the record show that I had the idea BEFORE I Googled their site.
So without further ado . . . valuable lessons I learned from watching Star Wars. Ta da!
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.
There’s actually a couple of lessons in here. Don’t be afraid. That will only lead to suffering. If you are afraid, just cut out the middleman and start suffering. And if you want to just jump in the middle and start to hate, you’ll still end up in the same place. It’s like a damned logic problem. A begets B which then leads to C. There’s no way you’re going to find D (Happiness) by starting at A or B. What? You think Star Trek has the monopoly on logic?
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
I touched on this in previous blog entries: On a Leg and a Prayer and Finding Faith. Like George Michaels sings, You Gotta Have Faith. Faith. Faith. Tim McGraw has Faith. But now I’ve really digressed here, and that’s not who I was really talking about in the first place. It’s not nice to fool with Darth Vader. If you think Mother Nature is a bitch, just wait until he blows up your planet or chokes you from across the room. So go out there and get you some faith.
Who is more foolish . . . the fool or the fool that follows him?
This is like those philosophical questions such as ‘if a man is alone in a forest and says something, is he still wrong?’ Which came first, the fool or the fool that follows? Who is more foolish, the politician or the fools that voted for him? Nothing is foolproof because fools are so damned ingenious.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Actually, a very good life lesson. Even Nike took advantage . . . Just Do It.
What a piece of junk!
Don’t judge a spaceship by its appearance . . . this is broadly a reinvention of don’t judge a book by its cover. This is actually a very important theme in Star Wars as it appears multiple times in different ways. That’s no moon. It’s a space station. (Things don’t always appear as they are until too late.) Aren’t you a little short to be a storm trooper? Judge me by my size, do you? Apparently, in a galaxy far, far away, size does not matter. In space, you are weightless, so I guess it doesn’t matter. No one can hear you scream in space, although Obi-Wan sensed it, but now I’ve slipped into an entirely different genre of movies.
Evacuate in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.
This is kind of analagous to not counting your chickens until they’re hatched. I think most of us overestimate our worth and underestimate our expendability. Sometimes, an over healthy dose of confidence can get you blown up into itty bitty pieces. But then again, Yoda would have told him to do it or not do it. Either way, I think he gets blown into itty bitty pieces. But at least Moff Tarkin stuck by his principles as he was spread out over the universe in one fell swoop.
I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.
Listen to your intuition. How many times have you read Dear Abby where someone is obviously being cheated on and they want to know if they should stay or move on? Don’t people learn intuition in kindergarten anymore? Do you really need Dear Abby to smack you upside the head on this one? If you’ve got a pretty bad feeling about something, it’s probably pretty bad.
I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let the Wookie win.
Bravado is all good and everything, but sometimes you just have to step down from a fight. It does no good to have your arms and legs pulled out of their sockets. You’ll just end up like the Black Night on Monty Python. It’s just a flesh wound! If you’re playing against the droid, then do it. If you’re up against Chewbacca–then do not . . . let the Wookie win.
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.
This could have gone under the category above–what a piece of junk–symbolizing that things aren’t always what you think they are. But in this case–in the movie–the droids were what they were looking for. The lesson here is that sometimes you have to take advantage of the weak-minded. Maybe it’s politically incorrect, but it might save your skin. If you are weak-minded and happen to be reading this post, this IS the blog you were looking for. And you want to send me money to thank me. Lots of money. You’re welcome.
What a wonderful smell you’ve discovered.
This is some rescue. You came in here and you didn’t have a plan for getting out? Sometimes you have to get down and dirty in life. Shit happens, and the odor is not always pleasant. But sometimes, it’s the only way out.
Stay on Target.
OK, so planes are going down in flames around you. But you have to keep on target if you want to achieve anything. Stay on target. Stay on target. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Boom. On second thought, maybe this is bad advice. Unless you are a suicide bomber. Stay on target is good advice unless people are dying around you. Then, you might want to back off and let the Wookie win. There’s some good advice in here somewhere, dammit. Figure it out for yourself. If you don’t like Target, try K-Mart. Or Wal-Mart. Just stay on it. Or not.
Use the Force, Luke.
Sometimes you have to draw strength from a higher power. It’s there. You might as well use it.
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.
You could actually insert [nothing] is no match for a good blaster at your side, but that would be a double negative, and saying ‘anything is no match’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. While not a Star Wars movie, Harrison Ford demonstrates this timeless piece of wisdom in a scene from Indiana Jones:
theeyelife 