Maybe Luke was Just Depressed

I take it back.

Everything I said about Luke Skywalker in the last post, I just take it back.

You know, call me cynical, but maybe Disney had the right idea. Maybe how they portrayed Luke wasn't so far off. Maybe that's how it works. One really does just keep skipping through life, constantly making the same dumb mistakes over and over without ever learning a damn thing, ignoring God/the Force or whatever, until one finally loses faith in God/the Force. And maybe that's what happened to Luke. He never learned shit. He just kept doing the same stupid thing over and over despite knowing better, and knowing what he ought to be doing. He finally lost faith in the Force, and stopped listening to it to the point of closing himself off completely.

Then he got so depressed and so disillusioned by his own stupidity that he said "Fuck it all," and took off for a deserted island to hide alone with a bunch of Porgos that actually kind of look like cats (penguin cats).

He's the crazy hermit Porgo guy.

He didn't blame the Force, he blamed himself. But I can understand the reasoning behind giving up listening to the Force/God or whatever. If you are so stupid that you can't even listen to the Force/God or whatever that you just keep doing the same stupid thing over and over, and you know it's your own fault, well, why bother listening anymore? Clearly even the Force/God can't save you from yourself.

So, then, when Luke finally was able to make a life for himself without having to worry about carrying the damn weight of the universe on his shoulders, some Millennial shows up, already knowing everything and being perfect at everything despite having only been exposed to it for maybe a week (like all Millennials), demanding his help, and it probably just pissed him off to no end.

What they didn't show in the movie is Luke telling Rey, "Hey, since you're so perfect and know so much about the Force and can already wield a lightsaber while it took me years to learn proper Jedi training, why don't you go save the damn universe and leave me out of it?" Fucking Millennials.

Okay, so maybe I'm projecting just a tad, but hey, Luke Skywalker is my twin flame. We understand each other. We feel each others' pain. I mean, here's Luke who had to fight and train and scrap for everything he got, and constantly be in control of his emotions, and never get angry because Jedi can't get angry, and never get laid, because well, look what happened to Anakin, and then become a legend with every last hope riding on his shoulders. It's no wonder he went a little crazy when he caused the ultimate of all fuckups by failing with Kylo Ren. He had a total Force meltdown. I guess he can't be blamed for that. And what's worse is, here's this upstart Miss Perfect infringing on his solitude, DEMANDING he do as she says, because, well she's young and female so she's got to be right. All she's whining about is that she doesn't know who her parents are. But everyone should feel so sorry for her because wah, wah, her parents abandoned her.

Well, honey, Luke's dad was Darth Vader. And he didn't feel the need to go cry in his safe place with a puppy and an ice cream sundae.

Not that I'm excusing Luke. As I said, he was well aware that he was just constantly making the same stupid mistakes over and over and seemed powerless to stop himself. Meanwhile, he stopped listening to the Force, because well, when's the last time I had a conversation with God? He's not listening anymore either, because he's tired of my stupidity. Maybe the Force isn't either. And the cherry on top is that Luke KNOWS he's at fault, he KNOWS he's making the same mistakes over and over, and he BLAMES himself.

Eventually one just gets sick of themselves and their own stupidity.

And that's when the depression sets in.

That's when the fatigue sets in.

That's when the desire to run and hide becomes overwhelming.

In a perfect Disney world people do pull themselves up by the bootstraps, stop sniveling, stop whining, and stop wallowing. They get up and DO something. They pull themselves out of it and carry on. They force themselves to seek treatment and get better and keep trying and not give up.

And then God invented antidepressants.

Luke had weird alien milk. That seemed to be the only thing lining his ass out on that island.

At least he didn't become an alcoholic. He had every reason to.

Maybe it was fermented milk.

But that isn't how it always works. They tell you to change things if you don't like the mistakes you're making. They never tell you how to change it. There are antidepressants, and strict meal plans to rebalance hormones, and exercises, and meditating, and yoga. All those things help. But they never tell you how you can actually shift your feelings. You're supposed to just know.

Like a Millennial.

But only Millennials know everything. The rest of us are just mere mortals. So it turned out Luke was also a mere mortal who happened to at one time wield incredible power in the Force. Now he wants to be left alone to live out the rest of his life in peace...and they won't let him. He can't just sit on an island and wallow in depression. No, he has to make everyone else feel better, cease making everyone uncomfortable with his mental illness, and save the universe.

Somehow Rey, Chewy, and the rest of the universe managed to make Luke's depression all about them.

It's like some really bad Dear Abby letter: Dear Abby, Our Jedi Master abandoned us and everyone in the universe to run away to some deserted island due to his severe mental illness, leaving us to actually have to step up and do things ourselves. He's supposed to be our hero and legend, and his selfish mental illness has really made things inconvenient for us. How can we get him to see the error of his ways and return to his rightful duty in saving the day like he always has?

Or, Dear Abby: Our Jedi Master has severe clinical depression and mental illness. How can we make this all about us?

Because that's how it is, isn't it? When someone doesn't feel at their optimal, it suddenly becomes their job to mask it, hide it, fake it till they make it in order to make everyone else feel better so that they don't have the uncomfortable task of actually dealing with someone else's inadequacies and imperfections.

Instead they are told to quit whining and buck up.

But Luke wasn't whining. He wasn't bothering anyone with his depression. He took his intolerable self and depression off to no man's land where no one had to BE uncomfortable with his depression. But you know what? When his depression finally became inconvenient for them, they came looking for him anyway. Then they blamed him for not being what they wanted. They got angry about his inadequacies. They got upset about the fact that even the most powerful Jedi has moments of weakness and humanity. And plenty of moments of stupidity.

How dare he.

And therein lies the real problem. If even someone like Luke can fall from grace and give into his emotions, that means no one is safe from it. Everyone is inadequate and everyone fails and everyone has issues, and eventually they will have to accept that, warts and all. If one chooses to deal with their issues by hiding them and NOT dealing with them and pretending everything is okay, then what gives them the right to demand another person do the same? Because that person's depression and mental illness makes THEM uncomfortable? Maybe Luke got tired of pretending everything was okay, because clearly, it wasn't.

So if Luke wants to wallow in self-pity and depression on a deserted island where he isn't bothering anyone except maybe a mess of Porgos, that should be his right. And he shouldn't have to apologize that his issues make everyone else uncomfortable. Too bad if his mental illness became inconvenient for others. It's not like he was using it as an excuse to mass murder a bunch of people.

If they didn't like it, maybe they shouldn't have gone looking for him.

Though he did, of course, end up saving their rear ends at the end. So he did what they asked and what was expected of him. Despite his depression and feelings of inadequacies and self-loathing, he did what needed to be done.

That probably makes him more of a hero than what he did in Return of the Jedi.

Ironic, isn't it? Because the last thing he wanted was to be a hero. They all got what they wanted. Hopefully, he finally got what he wanted when he disappeared from that ledge: Peace.