Apathy Is Death You Have Never Experienced ⋅ Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
As we tread through the wilderness of abandoned planets in uncharted galaxies, we encounter the magic of the unknown: patterns in the sand, wondrous flora, and creatures unlike any we have known. We value what the Force has created, only to immediately set about enslaving what it has offered us in its open palms. We are merciless toward the unknown, precisely because it lies beyond our control.
The lightsaber—a fusion of knowledge and technology—is the tool with which we carve a path through the unknown; it shields us, while placing others in danger. The life of one who wields a weapon is deemed more valuable than the life of one who is unarmed. He who fights takes upon himself the burden of death, and thus considers himself superior to those who do not—those whom he “protects” from that very burden.
This is the game of the Force, pitting the Dark and Light sides against one another in an eternal dance of opposites—a dance that generates energy. It is the engine of all existence. We, in turn, see ourselves as puppets of this all-seeing puppeteer—a master we either seek to appease or strive to overthrow. Do we truly understand this thing we call the “Force”—from the moment of our birth until the hour of our death?
Triumvirate of Darkness
Triumph of the Will
“To fall so far and yet learn nothing—that is your failing.”
— Kreia
Suffering is the only thing that binds our fragmented lives into a whole. Look closely, and you will see that our mirror is nothing but a hundred shards, each reflecting a distorted image. We cling desperately to the past—which once sheltered us like a cocoon—and, day after day, we construct a world modeled upon that past. We fail to see the world as it truly is, for we refuse to let the cocoon break open. It is our identity—an identity we are not yet ready to let go.
Our bodies are coming apart at the seams, and we are terrified to discover that, deep down, we are empty.
Darth Sion
A Void, Consumed by Hunger
“War… is a hunger. And there are spirits in this galaxy whose hunger can never be satisfied.”
— Kreia
Conflict reveals who we are beneath the masks we wear—the stories we tell ourselves every single day. Faced with destruction, we see that there is nothing left in us except a hunger for the life we have not tasted. And this hunger enslaves all that lives.
We live under the illusion that we can “feel” an inner void—a void that must be filled. Yet, when true emptiness arrives, there is no longer anyone left to feel it.
Darth Nihilus
The Blindness of Wisdom
“Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you.”
— Kreia
In spending so long trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, we have become blind to ourselves—to the very one who seeks to understand the Force. Is this not the most important thing? The integrity and clarity of a crystal are just as vital as the light that passes through it. Our desire for wisdom has clouded our desire to understand where desires come from altogether—we do not want to see ourselves.
We have beheld the Force in its entirety: through millennia of wonders and horrors, peace and war, civilization and barbarism, uniqueness and monotony—light and darkness. We have grown so intolerant of our own understanding of life that we have come to hate life itself. But what is the Force, if not us? What, then, is there to fight, if not the illusions we refuse to confront? They cling so closely to our body that they seem like our own skin.
Ultimately, we have ceased to see ourselves in the world.
Kreia
The Enclave of Light
“If one is to truly understand, you need the contrast not adherence to a single idea.”
— Kreia
How tedious is the light we have fashioned with our own hands—a lantern used to cast shadows upon a wall, only for us to be frightened by them, day after day. These artificial lights, conjured to ward off the darkness, are cold and fleeting. Whatever lies hidden behind them is not a mystery, but merely a failure of imagination. Our artificial light is the measure of our own limitations.
Atris
The Gray in Between
We are intoxicated by the pursuit of a “golden mean”—a glitch in the program, a silence between two notes—a space through which we might escape this recurring cycle. But does such an escape truly exist? Or is this eternal flight from the loop merely another loop itself? The Chosen One—the one who unites both principles: light and darkness, death and life. One who embodies the Force in its totality, unconstrained by the boundaries of language, morality, or doctrine. Something living, ever-changing, like a river—something that, time and again, descends to the depths only to rise to the peaks; moving from darkness into light, from war into peace.
We catch a glimpse of this wholeness in Revan, the Exile, and other such legendary figures—archetypes crafted to soothe our minds, allowing us to remain in a state of inaction. They help us continue to ignore the true problem: ourselves—our desperate need for an authority figure, a warden, and the belief that knowledge can serve as a panacea against the unknown—against death itself. We yearn for someone to set us free from the very prison we have built.
There is no Force, no Light or Darkness, no mysteries, and no answers. There is only you.
“The Jedi… The Sith… You don’t get it, do you? To the Galaxy, they’re the same thing: Men and women with too much power, squabbling over religion, while the rest of us burn!”
— Atton Rand
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