Star Wars

A castle on a lake - if I did not live in Ireland I do not know where else I would live

Star Wars is some film eh? It is hard to imagine how the film industry was before Star Wars. It more or less single-handedly introduced the idea of the used future. After Star Wars everything had to be a box-office smash, or it wasn't successful. That was the end of the Midnight Cowboys and the Taxi Drivers. It had a weapons system named after it. And of course it spawned loads and loads and loads of collectors, fanboys, etc... all around the world.

I remember when Star Wars was NOT a thing. I am not talking about life before Star Wars. I am talking about the late 80s when everyone had more or less forgotten about Star Wars. Anyway, this post is not about when Star Wars was not a thing. Because to me, it always was a thing. I am not the sort of person who goes around broadcasting my crazy love for Star Wars, but I have seen the films a fair few times each (ok, at least 20), I collected the novels, I had a Star Wars board game, and I had a few toys/action figures. I collected the Coca Cola bottle cap pictures and cut out all the articles I could find on Star Wars and pasted them in my scrapbook. I was so severely traumatised by the three prequals that I never ever mention Star Wars again really. To me, the first was the best and the Return of the Jedi had lost the plot slightly, especially with the Ewoks who grow increasingly annoying as the years go by, so the downward trajectory continued. I kind of walked away from Star Wars and when the new film came out I refused to get excited.

Well I finally got to see the Sixth Star Wars (Part VII). I thought it was good. It had a relatively good story line and we also had lots of laughing and of course, I did NOT expect it when the X-Wing fighters came out and I actually had to hold back the tears. There was something about the X-Wing fighters which made me think of being a child once again, willing the good guys on, the small frys to fight against the big guys - the forces of the Empire.

So, after it all settled, I wondered to myself. What was it that made the first Star Wars so good? I lay in bed and brought all those scenes back to life. Obi Wan Kenobi finding Luke, Hans Solo in Mos Eisley, Leia in her cell, Vadar and his menace? What was it? All that wonderful space age stuff. The fighter jets, the Star Destroyers, the Death Star... and it was really - it was innocence. In the first three Star Wars, they had no idea they were going to be SOOOOO big. Everything had been done on a budget, so the money had to stretch - so people put their passion and paid really close attention to the story. They truly set themselves, the EGO aside, to work on the project - the sets, the costumes, just everything. They had the right people in the right place and so - the project came together. And I have noticed this about TOO MUCH money. Sometimes too much money can confuse the story. It is much better to have just enough money when you are doing something, because like metre and rhyme in a poem, it gives the idea boundaries in which it can play. It is the same thing for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Matrix. (If anyone has ever watched Jupiter Ascending, you will know how even the most gifted directors can get hopeless lost if they are given too much cash. ) A fantastic new idea in which everyone takes a risk. When the humanity comes through, rather than the special effects - and that is when the story connects with us completely. I am not saying no money is good. I am saying that people need to know how to use it wisely. More money than sense, I believe is an accepted saying.

Because of this there will never be another Star Wars from the same studio, mostly because of its success. Maybe someone else will make like another Star Wars story - but be completely outside the main narrative arc which is just as good. But really, that Star Wars exists at all, we should be grateful that someone, through the medium of film, appealing to all ages, was able to make a myth work so well for us.

On to Christmas. Christmas was weird, as usual. For the first time, ever I actually paid any attention to it at all. I suppose I was wondering, what would happen if I followed a little of what was suggested by society in general. So we had the Christmas dinner, I decorated the house, we shopped for some presents, blah blah blah... here is my verdict.

Christmas is weird - there is no doubt, because it sort of forces things on people. And, I think sometimes people do need to be forced to do thing. This is a good thing. But like having more money than sense, it is forcing people to do too much.

I think I did too much this year. What would I keep from this year?

I think I would keep the decorating - that is very nice.
I would not keep the presents. Nope. Hopefully Ghin will be old enough soon to be told about Santa. Either that or they don't get things through the year.
I would keep the Christmas meal, but I would scale it down. I would donate the money to homeless shelters, etc if ONLY I knew that it wasn't a tokenistic thing. I really wish that I knew that donating money to good causes really does go to the good cause. This throwing money at things is not something I have ever understood to be effective. So I don't know. More and more I have strong suspicions about where the money goes to.
I'd still keep going to the service... and making chocolate for friends. I would do all that.

But I think I am going to have to rethink Christmas. Actually I have rethink Christmas. It is called by birthday celebrations/winter solstice celebrations. Maybe I should just aim for that again in the future. Two celebrations - one with family and one with party.

It also does not help that I am an intravert/introvert and do not understand all this pointless activity.

I much prefer the weekdays and the weekends when we spend time together in an organic, bumbling, humourous way. I do LOVE though the break. Oh I love the stretch between Christmas and the New Year. I love that.

That nothing to do-ness. That is great.

So tomorrow I head back to planning land. I was sort of lying in bed, again, last night, very tired - really oddly tired, and thinking of all the stupid things I had done with my life, when I managed to catch myself on and go, this is really idiotic. How come people do this? Beat themselves up about stupid things? So I then thought of all the good things in my life and I felt instantly better. It had been a long time since I did that - usually I am lying in bed too tired to do anything, apart from feel more or less completely useless because I have too much to do and no energy to do it with.

But anyway, as the last week of the year plays itself out, I think of all the amazing places I have been to and all the people I have met. I have fallen in love many many times, I have two amazing sons, I have read fantastic novels and seen the most amazing works of art, I have laughed with friends and cried with them too. I have been truly happy and completely devastated and everything in between. The life I have led is a full one and if it is a full life, you really cannot say with any degree that you have any real regrets. Sometimes I read inspirational quotes about leading the life you have always wanted, and I get just a little bit smug and say, well, is there any other way? I have always done what I have believed was right. Always, even to my own cost. My life has never EVER been half lived - why would you do that to yourself? Exist on the surface... never ever knowing what it means to explore the mysteries of the depths within which we are capable of plumbing. Playing it safe.

I think that is one of the challenges for me growing older. I understand societal conventions more. I don't agree with them, but I understand them more. And what I see is that they are there really as controlling devices. If you step out of line, you are mercilessly punished. I don't really care about being mercilessly punished or judged, but perhaps this is why I ran away from Singapore. I knew that there was going to come a time either that I was ostracised OR that I would be punished for being unconventional. And so I left - I think this is why lots of people leave. Here, I am outside the rubric, the expectations of the norm, I can truly live the way I believe because I either do not understand the convention OR I do not care about it. Plus in Northern Ireland, people have a much better grip on what is important. I know that people here think this is nonsense, because there are lots of crazy people here, but the ORDINARY people have a deep appreciation for life having had to endure the history of Ireland, and I think this is what makes Irish people so nice to be around. They are warm, funny, hyperrealistic and nothing can scare them. They have looked at various kinds of terror in the face and told it to fuck off.

Finally one last thing about Star Wars and Ireland. It was very interesting that Luke was on Planet Ireland when he was found. I have always wanted to go to the Skellings and now my heart sinks. So everyone will want to go to the Skelligs now. Does the Tourist Promotion Board realise the monster it has unleashed? The Skelligs cannot be visited on a regular basis. It is very fragile. It is a UNESCO site. Its ecosystem is contingent on it not being invaded by fanboys and girls by the thousands. Have they come up with the plan to protect the Skelligs? The little shearwaters and the puffins and the other birds that nest there? Already the filming caused a lot of disturbance, pissing off loads of the conservation types. I cannot imagine what the fallout will do to the place.