It IS the Jedi Way

Forgive me for this post, team. It's currently 1a, and I'm waiting for my laundry to finish. I've run out of my Netflix marathon (House of Cards; because politics), YouTube has nothing new to show me, and fireworks are happening just outside my window. Sleep is not really on the agenda. So, I get to write on my blog.

I recently finished playing through one of my favorite video games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. (Yes, this is a video game post. Feel free to quit reading if you want. No? Alrighty then, I'll press on.) Really, it was going to be pretty difficult for Microsoft and BioWare, the companies that produced the game, to mess it up for me. If you haven't noticed, I'm a pretty big Star Wars fan. I own all the movies thanks to a Star-Wars-themed Christmas during high school. I have a small collection of cheap plastic lightsabers in my room at home. Heck, even the name of my blog speaks to my fandom.

What follows comes from my journal the day after I completed the game for the xth time, where x is an unknown number. I made a few additions so that it makes sense to those that have never played the game.

"From playing this game, I've learned that conflict between ourselves and something else is what brings about growth. I've learned that apathy is death. I've learned that every action has consequences.

I play it too much. But, I really like it. I like being able to lose myself in a galaxy far, far away. All of Star Wars is about the ultimate battle between good and evil and how that battle is waged within ourselves. It's really cool.

It also doesn't hurt that swinging around lightsabers is stupidly awesome.

Normally, I play through as a dark side character. The dark side makes things ridiculously easy. But this time, I was light side. That was mostly a forced result because the game glitches at the end of the dark side story line. But still, I chose to be light side, and I chose to be the best light side I could be.

The way this game works is based on making choices. Certain actions and conversation choices will grant you either light side or dark side points. Accumulation of these points pushes you further towards either end of the spectrum. If you play out the light side choices correctly, you are pretty much the best, truest Jedi ever.

I want to be like that.

I want to be the truest me. I want to be the best me. Will I make mistakes? Will I accidentally accumulate dark side points? Yeah. But I can always get light side points in the very next choice, the very next scenario. I can come right back.

The last thing this game taught me? It's never too late to be redeemed."

Luke