The Force Continues...

Thoughts on the Last Jedi...

Hope is the reverse of what you expect. Hope that the story will end with good surviving, hate being exhausted at every turn, cynicism being abandoned for the chance that something "just might work".

The long shots, the spit balls in the face of destruction, good always looks like its going to be destroyed, light always seems like it's sputtering and about to go out, it's hard to breathe in a vacuum.

Hope is fragile.

Hope is ferocious.

Hope is believing in something enough to give it your all, despite all the odds being against you, and every logical route being exhausted. Because that's what happens when you try to physically break a log already in the fire...it splinters into hundreds of sparks, each burning just as bright and as hot as the original flame. Energy only transfers...it can't be destroyed. Energy communicates through touch, interaction, transfer. Life tends toward entropy, big becomes small, life becomes death, only to be reformed, renewed and given a new face, a new shape, a new life.

Each character in the movie was broken down to their end level, their hope was the hard steel in their spine knowing that they're probably not going to survive, but the chance was there that others might.

...There's a biblical teaching, "whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake, will find it." (matt. 16:25)

There were so many moments and levels of surrender in this movie. Each time one of the characters decided to give up the dearest thing to them, it was returned to them in a different way. Po surrendered his fiercely held autonomy. He had always been ready to get into tight situations, because he knew he could always get himself out of it. We see a catastrophic loss for the rebellion in lives and resources when the bombing run on the Dreadnought was devastated. The Vice Admiral was the turning point; her sacrifice, for Po, was the defining moment he realized, he was not the leader he thought he was.When he was helpless on the convoy, and the Vice Admiral chose to give her life to save the survivors, he realized that he was no longer a free agent, he had bound himself to ensure a belief, and ideal, survived; he ultimately realized that for an idea to survive, those who believe in it must survive as well.

Each character revolved...they turned, some were 180 degree turns, like Po, Finn, and Rose. Others completed their revolution and instead of changing, they were given the chance to choose the direction of their spiral. Luke and Rey spiraled down, only to choose to return, and rise - while bringing the hope of others up and forward...Kylo Renn chose to spiral downwards, completing his descent as a Sith, pulling chaos and fear and dread along with him.

You could see the choices, the moments, the pivotal change in each heart, spirit and mind that solidified their path...they chose, whether conscious of it or not, their alignment within the "force".

This is why I will fight. Because there is still good to believe in, and work for. I am not the end result of all I've experienced...I am a million sparks from a broken tree on fire, and I am only looking for a place that can handle my spark. I want to be more than i am, I want to accomplish more than I can, and the only way to make that possible, is to hope...and then do the impossible.