I don’t want to be angry. I know, I know: I just wrote an entire blog post about getting back into the fight, but over the past few days I’ve been doing some thinking. I don’t want to be angry; I want to be passionate. And there is a difference.
The picture above is a very simple picture of the creature Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace facing the viewer, sitting on a grid, leaning against a yellow crate on the right with a red crate on the left. He appears to be lost in thought, resting his head on his left hand with his legs splayed out in front of him. The image mirrors how I’ve felt the past few days.
Including the Binks picture is more than just illustration. It reminds me of the difference between the Jedi and the Sith, two opposing factions of Force users from the Star Wars universe. The difference I wish to discuss is the difference between anger and passion. The Sith, categorized as evil and dark, use anger as a pathway to power, and as a tool to wield power over others.
Jedi Master Yoda says the Dark Side of the Force is “easier, quicker: more seductive” just as anger which is “quick to join” in the heat of the moment. Much more subtle is the passion of the Jedi. Passion must be fed, it must be nurtured: cared for. Passion derives its strength from love, ultimately, and slowly builds into an explosive force (no space-pun intended).
For the uninitiated, the untrained, the unwary, and the impatient, anger can seem like passion, but it has an edge and a bite. It cuts and crushes, and ultimately exhausts, leaving a bitter shell behind. Passion fuels, paradoxically softens, like sand paper smoothing a rough edge leaving a gentle curve. Both produce heat, come at the expense of friction, but only passion boosts and allows its wielder to thrive.
I want passion. I reject anger. I know, I also quoted the OCB which says “be angry and sin not” but I don’t much like that translation or that connotation. I prefer a verse that says “be passionate, and not angry, which leads to sin” but I didn’t write the thing. At any rate, I don’t want the edge, the cutting force of anger to incite me to fight. I want to overcome with passion, and be overcome by it. I don’t want to fight. I want to be moving so powerfully that no one, or thing, could come close to fighting me, that it would be a futile waste of effort. I am not a violent person, and don’t wish to become one in the chase away from lethargy.
In the novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi is described as a “devastating warrior” who would prefer to “sit alone in a quiet cave and meditate” and that is more akin to what I would be. So full of the Force of passion, that would I ever need to do battle. I’d be unmatched, but really, I’d want to be amidst the life-giving Force itself. Kenobi so disdains battle that he is known throughout the Clone Wars as the “Negotiator”: the fighter who prefers to talk. That’s exactly what I want to be, in this example.
Yoda wasn’t great because he was a warrior; he reminded Luke Skywalker that “wars not make one great”. Yoda was great because he chose not to fight, not to engage, and to amass wisdom, peace, and patience. Eventually, evil was brought down by its own hubris, blindness, and corruption: from the inside. By fighting at all, Luke was being drawn towards the Dark Side. Only in throwing away (literally: his lightsaber) his fight could he start the course of action that would lead to evil’s destruction. That is what I want to be, in that example: the fighter who chooses love instead.
Maybe that sounds all too space hippy, but why not? Glamor all too often chooses the wrong target: the bold, the brash, the battler. Perhaps the ones who deserve the glory are the peacemakers, the meek, and the gentle. It takes passion to wear away the rough edges of confrontation, of power-lust, and of greatness-seeking behavior. Color me invested in rebelling against the quick, seductive lure of anger and moving towards the patient cultivation of passion. I don’t want to be the hero, the Anakin who fell to anger’s dark lure. I want to be Kenobi, be Luke, Yoda, passionate about what drives my passion and full of light. That is what I am chasing.
Look, I wasn’t wrong a few days ago, just unrefined. I want to constantly be growing, and moving in the right direction. I think I’ve found the bedrock beneath the sand I was sifting. Now I have something I can build on. True growth, I believe, is in admitting when one is wrong, and by altering course to fly in the right direction. So here’s me, in my little starfighter, headed for meditation and growth and away from battle.
a simple man 