A New Hope?

I was watching an interview with George Lucas today and he was asked what the 2 sunsets represented in A New Hope. It has always been a powerful scene in my mind, the sweeping and swelling music of John Williams as Luke looks out to the horizon and sees this stunning view. Lucas said that it represented life outside the box, the adventure that one can pursue in the horizon. He says that the characters live in the boring everyday life and look out at the sunset, and when they decide to chase after the adventure, fulfill their destiny they head out towards the sunset in glory and hope or the darkness of space in courage and fear.

I guess this isn’t a revolutionary idea, but today I was trying to figure out which character I was, Luke, or one of his cousins who just sit at home and eventually get turned into burning corpses. In the story it’s only after everything is lost that Luke decides to begin a new life. I wish I had that kind of opportunity at a soul level. I wish that I could head off for the sunset and change completely, but I have a feeling I’d have just called the neighbours and asked if I could live with them.

I’ve also been realizing the immense separation between soul/mind and body, it’s really strange how in our minds we can desire something so much and yet we fail to live out those things. As well, how much social ideas affect our life and actions. For instance if I wanted to head out to New Zealand with Danny and give up on everything here it would be immensely difficult, just because no one does that. I’m expected to fulfill the same roles as all those around me, and to be almost the same with just enough uniqueness to pretend that I am different, pointing at a straw and calling it a hay field. Everyone dreams about it, but no one does it. I guess they dream about the fun parts, not the sleeping in the mud parts.

As well it’s amazing to me how much fear sculpts everything we do. Maybe it’s only at the end of our rope when we realize that we face death and the loss of everything that we can have to courage necessary to act. I am amazed constantly by how much fear shapes everything we do. Fear of failure, fear of everything. I’m afraid.

Fear as you know leads to the dark side, maybe I need to get rid of my fear. I tried doing it near the end of school, and everyone thought I was crazy, I did worse than ever at school, even if I was a lot more at peace.

So ya, if I could actually sell all my stuff and get a plane ticket and go it would be so amazing, I’d be my own hero, but I’m sure after a month I’d be begging to come home and say anything to recant and to try to remake my life from the shambles. But I wish I had the determination to actually set out and live my life, live it the way I want it to look, and be the person I want to be. If instead of just dreaming, I would actually act. That’d be amazing.

I could live my whole life perfectly and struggle to succeed, but I think when I lay on my death bed at 42 from heart disease, I’d have traded all that time from now till then, just for one chance at adventure – as I believe one Scottish Rebel William Wallace said in Braveheart. I think that maybe life would be infinitely more meaningful if I became that person. But I’m pretty sure I won’t. I’ll catch a break, figure out a life, get a job, tell myself it was the right thing. But I think every time I see that sunset I’ll always remember what might have been.