As a series of movies, the Star Wars saga explores many emotions: hope, love, anger, revenge, isolation, bereavement, greed, pity, fealty and self-doubt. One emotion that none of the movies ever thoroughly studies is joy. Arguments could be made for the closing celebrations on Naboo (The Phantom Menace) and Endor (Return of the Jedi), but in the former case joy is overshadowed by the watcher's indifference to the rest of the film and in the latter case joy is not as good a fit as the watcher's relief at plot resolution. I would argue that the central them of the whole saga is hope. And I further argue that hope and joy cannot routinely inhabit the same orbit as one is set in anticipation and the other is set in fulfillment.
Precept 3: The practical Jedi must embody joy. One must experience happiness and keep it at the core of one's purpose always. The modern world is built on an economy of risk and reward. The drive of too many is anticipation of the next paycheck or the next big idea to be patented. Religions offer hope, and while the practical Jedi can have religion (more later), the very reason for the practical Jedi to exist to bring the real world something it sorely lacks. This is the first of many departures of the practical Jedi from the mythological order. The movie Jedi are guardians of peace and carry the fire of hope, but joy is foreign. There are corollaries in Yoda's critique of Luke Skywalker: "All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What he was doing." But this is hardly an endorsement of joy.
Precept 3: The practical Jedi must embody joy. One must experience happiness and keep it at the core of one's purpose always. The modern world is built on an economy of risk and reward. The drive of too many is anticipation of the next paycheck or the next big idea to be patented. Religions offer hope, and while the practical Jedi can have religion (more later), the very reason for the practical Jedi to exist to bring the real world something it sorely lacks. This is the first of many departures of the practical Jedi from the mythological order. The movie Jedi are guardians of peace and carry the fire of hope, but joy is foreign. There are corollaries in Yoda's critique of Luke Skywalker: "All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What he was doing." But this is hardly an endorsement of joy.