A thread of emails from a seriously mis-informed light-sider to the Fatum Operandi.

Topic: My opinion on the Darkside- Android Fett's post (1 of 17), Read 123 times Conf: > Light Jedi Discussion

From: Joni C jediknightjoni_c@hotmail.com

Date: Sunday, July 08, 2001 11:47 AM

Do I believe that the Darksiders here at the FA are evil and/or hateful?
Do I believe they are just on a path that is different from my own?
This question is very difficult for me to answer because I really have no idea what is in their hearts and it would be inappropriate given that I am operating in the dark (No pun intended) to ascribe motivation to those following the dark side here at the FA. I also have not even once taken the time to visit the FO which I know the members of which have put a great deal of time and effort in forming a useful, cohesive curriculum. Given the obvious limitations of my potential critique -I can share my opinion on what I think it means to spend one's time teaching students, many of them children, lessons on how to focus emotions such as hatred and fear to accomplish one's objectives in life. This is something I disagree with...though not emphatically for the FA is but a website and I know and like most of the darksiders here. I just disagree with Darkside philosophy mainly because I find it unchallenging and not terribly useful in one's life. I've said it before and I will say it again-the best place to find your darkside is by simply looking in the mirror. The human animal is the most vicious-destructive force to ever set foot on this planet and because of our natural need to expand and adapt- nature has provided us with all the darkness that we will ever need to negotiate life's challenges. I find it more challenging to stay in the moment and cultivate a sense of calm when meeting life's frustrations face to face. My personal pathway to the Force has been to cultivate chi through the internal martial art nei-kung and transform that chi into life spirit, shen. I also study the chapters of the Tao te Ching as a complement to my physical regimen. Nowhere in my studies, either with my masters here in New York and Los Angeles- or in my memorizing and reflecting on the ideas of Lao Tzu have I ever encountered anything that states that the way to feel a oneness with oneself and the world is to live in a place of Fear, Anger, Sorrow, or Pride.

Now before I, as Lao Tzu says, "Close my mind in judgments and traffic with desires," let me say some good things about the Darkside. The Darkside seems to have a good handle on teaching its students not to repress the natural aggressive tendencies that manifest themselves in their/our/my lives. In terms of a philosophy that promotes honesty and equanimity through the idea that repressing one's truthful and naturally emanating emotions can be harmful and stunt one's understanding and potential for insight-this I agree with wholeheartedly. The foundation for my own light training is to shake hands with the animal inside-not to squash that which will come forth regardless. I also think that many wonderful works of art, literature, intuition, and creativity come from our painful experiences-often involving loss or a belief in impending loss. Accompanying these painful experiences are feelings of despair and anger, hatred, and righteousness. Should one just ignore them or suppress them with a calming breath exercise? Should one smile and put on a happy face when one's heart is engorged with outrage like a ripe NJ tomato? No No No. To me, this is confirmation that one is not listening to the messages life is sending you. However, I also don't believe the way to seek balance in the Force and life is to allow the pendulum of one's heart to swing and stay in that place of anger/hatred/fear/pride/sorrow indefinitely. The danger involves the fact these emotions, though natural, necessary, and often pleasurable and ego affirming, won't help you bridge a gap with another human being that you may be having issues with. They might tell you that an expectation has not been met- or that a personal rule that you value has been broken-again honesty..etc. but they will not, can not, contribute to the dissolution of conflicts and suffering. And yes, I do believe you can hate poverty and work in a soup kitchen or fear a bad grade then study harder and therefore use/recognize those emotions to do better in one's endeavor- but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about real life- the person you see in school who feels alienated and lost or the problem of prejudice in society or the situation in the middle east. Imagine if our diplomats in the middle east were to prescribe a philosophy to the war-torn combatants encased in their ancient conflict to feel and focus their hatred toward one another? Not a terribly practical solution. Now if diplomacy breaks down and you are faced with an unreasonable opponent whose aggression knows no boundaries and you are in a situation where you are defending home and hearth-there is much that can be learned from the darkside in terms of the exercise of power. The only problem I feel is a darksider will focus only on the execution of that power and in doing so will contribute to the conflict's escalation. The real enemy is not the other human being but the conflict itself.

For question #2 I am also unable to form a truly accurate answer. I can only say that my path is one of light which means though because of my human heritage I will experience feelings of anger and hatred from time to time. I simply choose not to live there-and believe me it is not always easy! It would be easier, I believe, to become an agent of discord and evil by channeling these feelings into very real behavior that could lead to people suffering in my family, circle of friends, my community, and my world.

MTFBWYA

Topic: My opinion on the Darkside- Android Fett's post (2 of 17), Read 93 times Conf: > Light Jedi Discussion

From: Lady Satelle satelle@fatumoperandi.org

Date: Sunday, July 08, 2001 11:06 PM Interesting. I find it continuously amazing what opinions are formed here without even visiting the FO site, which explains it all. Even more amazing are the people who discourage others from going to the site, without knowing what's on it.

"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action."

I have to say then. Those of you who profess ignorance: Why haven't you visited the FO? Why haven't you made the effort to know? What are you scared of? My Darth Vader hand puppet?

Topic: My opinion on the Darkside- Android Fett's post (11 of 17), Read 64 times Conf: > Light Jedi Discussion

From: Lady Satelle satelle@fatumoperandi.org

Date: Monday, July 09, 2001 10:55 PM Ok, just had a thought on this issue. Clarification, and bear with me a moment:

At the Force Academy, the Fatum Operandi is the training program of the Dark Side.
Satelle, Qadira, Paimon, Bandraoi, Leelah, and Marcar are members of the Dark Jedi Council and administrative Council for the Fatum Operandi by extension.
For the past year, it has been this way.

I get the feeling that people are ignoring the above points when they post their opinions of the Dark. On one hand, you say that you're friends with the above-mentioned people, you respect them and you know they have this program they've worked hard on, yet in the next moment you launch into a stereotypical, Star Wars-driven load of judgmental fear, nicely written, to show your self-admitted ill-informed opinion. That's an amazing rationalization, if you take what your opinion of the Dark is and apply it to who the Dark actually is represented by at this site, and what their program says.

I can only assume a few things out of this. One, people are so desperate for the duality of the Force that they're going to amazing lengths to deny the reality of what they know from experience to cling to their illusions, or two, the other side is bald-faced lies, and your opinion of the friends listed above is actually what you describe the Dark to be. I'd be thrilled to hear other interpretations because either of those is pretty depressing to consider.

This is the Force Academy. People cry and beat their chests and call out for quality and decent training for Jedi, yet when faced with a program that is just that for one of the Aspects, you fail to accept it is what makes the FA unique. Is the FO somehow 'not the real Dark Side'? Do you want skulking Dark Siders that fit your every illusion of the Dark Side? Go elsewhere then, there's quite a few examples. The sheer amount of contradictory confusion and duality in your own opinion is painfully obvious from the standpoint of the informed. Those of us who know the Dark, know the FO, stare at all this and wonder what planet you're from.

Yes, knowledge shatters illusion. I see many illusions being clung to by perfectly intelligent people. So what do you want? Star Wars or the real thing? What's your vested interest in keeping the illusion?

Topic: My opinion on the Darkside- Android Fett's post (13 of 17), Read 52 times Conf: > Light Jedi Discussion

From: Lady Qadira yasraena_rrostarr@yahoo.com

Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 02:25 PM You know Chelsea, all those misinterpretations and misunderstandings is what a lot of this is about. I know that I've seen the Lightside move away from the straight StarWars stereotype to an extent. What I have to go on in making any opinions about the Light, what it is about, what its goals are, is what is posted here. There is not really anywhere on this site, in a public kind of way, that lays out the goals of the Lightside, as the Light Aspect is now. The stuff on the main forceacademy.com site hasn't been updated in eons. While I'm fairly certain that much of the material in the Light areas on the main site is still relevant, I know y'all have gone through changes. However, much of what it's all about now, is not really available for other people to read. When opportunities have arisen for me to read more about the Light or Shadow, the things people are working on to improve those Aspects, I take them.

A big part of the idea that Lady Satelle is emphasizing, to me, is that the DC has made the goals and ideals of the Darkside available to all. Yet many still say they know what we are, what we stand for, our methods, etc, without having even gone to the FO and read the information. And they admit it.

I agree, people who choose to live in ignorance cannot be forced to seek knowledge. But what do you do, when you’re seeking that knowledge and don’t find a cohesive layout of what it is you’re investigating? In this case, Lightside goals and ideals. I bring this up because the issues being discussed over the last several days merit it. I’m not pushing people to bring out stuff that they’re not finished working on. I know first-hand how much work and time goes into developing training programs and defining Aspects. But you’re asking me to do something here, that is essentially impossible for me to do. Maybe the information about the Lightside is contained within your training program. In which case, I’d have to go through that to acquire the information. Maybe at this time there is no developed definition of the Light’s goals, etc. What I’m saying is this. If the Light has such a thing, it’s not readily accessible. The Dark does have such a thing, and we have made it readily accessible. If there are some Light documents I’m completely overlooking here, point me towards them and I’ll read em.

I’ll admit I have been as guilty of tossing assumptions around based on Aspect as any other person here. One of the reasons I find the labels to be a larger hindrance than a help, is because of these barriers to communication that they encourage. But if you take away the labels, then the site as it exists will disappear. Think on it a while. If you remove the concepts of Light, Dark, Shadow, Jedi, StarWars…. and you have only people, following various avenues towards personal goals… how does that change the way in which we interact? Do people even want that? Many of us have gone from one view on the issue to the other, and back again multiple times. We see the merits of having the StarWars terminology. We see the merits of using none of the SW terms. The more I contemplate the issue, the more I think what we’ve accomplished with all of this is to hinder many people from gaining the personal knowledge that they can achieve. Simply by insisting on all these divisions. Instead of focusing on the basic idea that we’re here to learn. None of us have the same goals. We are all on our own individual path. I know for certain that none of the DC are cookie-cutter people. We share some common interests, but outside of those, we are very very different people. Same goes for the DS students. In fact, there is no one here that I have spoken with and gotten to know that is just the same as anyone else. We don’t share identical goals and dreams, we don’t want to know the exact same things, we’re not here for the exact same purposes. Just from watching the different ways in which various Light Council people conduct themselves, I know y’all are in the same boat we are. A whole bunch of people, trying to work together. With a bunch of differences of opinion.

What this last week has emphasized for me is my personal goal towards eliminating the whole stereotyping based on Aspects that I’ve been guilty of. To work towards seeing each person as an individual, as a part of the whole. Hard to see them as part of an Aspect when those aren’t necessarily clearly defined. If people want to know what the Dark Aspect is all about these days, go to FO and read through our Purpose and Mission and About articles. Check some of the dialogues out. If the web board or the main FA site had been more flexible, it’s likely much of this would be right here, just a mouse swoop away from a point and click to read. The link I gave will open into a new window.

I’ve browsed through the Shadow sites that Shinobi and Marian made available. If the Light have any sites that are open to being read, pass along the URL. There are some of us who truly are interested more in knowledge and personal enlightenment, than we are in name-calling and Aspect-bashing.

Topic: My opinion on the Darkside- Android Fett's post (17 of 17), Read 12 times Conf: > Light Jedi Discussion

From: Lady Bandraoi bandraoi138@hotmail.com

Date: Friday, July 20, 2001 01:25 PM

Okay, I'm jumping into this one a tad late, but I think the thing that was overlooked here was why Satelle first mentioned the lack of view on the FO.

In the first post, it was commented that the Dark path constitutes being trained to hate and use primarily anger as a means of dealing with life. That's where the problem is ... yeah, sure, that's what the Emperor prattled on about endlessly in Return of the Jedi, and what Vader said was the only way to obtain whatever you want, but that was Star Wars and NOT the FO.

We are more of the mind that you need to understand anger in order to get it under control, embracing it in a way, so you don't end up acting on it haphazard and doing something extremely asinine that you will regret later. We aren't of the mind that anger is evil or needs to be ruled out of life, but we do see it as a normal process that sometimes motivates people to act, but also needs to be handled with extreme care to avoid overkill. After all, do you go killing flies with sledgehammers? Wouldn't advise it if you like your abode the way it is.

Then again, if it wasn't for anger, what would have been accomplished in this world? If people just serenely took on the chin whatever was being passed to them, there would have been no revolutions (and we would be living on a slave planet), no laws changed for the sake of freedom or safety, no medical breakthroughs (as it is the angry people who have lost someone they loved to an illness or have one themselves that usually spearhead fund-raising and research) ... all in all, no reason to aspire to make things better. It is our anger (NOT to be misconstrued with rage or violence) that tells us something isn't right and we have to find a better way. If we never became "fed up" with anything, we wouldn't be inclined to change or improve our lives.

I think the real problem here is how one interprets "anger." Are you seeing it as the everyday emotion that can come in many different forms (such as irritation, frustration, annoyance, etc.) or just as the all-out "get my handgun out of the glove compartment while driving on the freeway and teach some people a lesson" type rage? The latter is an extremely narrow view of what anger is.

Furthermore, though I think many have moved past this, that whole "Sith" mentality was taken out of the DS ages ago, in fact long before the FO site first appeared on the Net. I can understand Satelle's lack of patience with the constant "fear," "hate," "rage" buzz phrases that are synonymous with Dark training, and thus imply that what its members are all about. It's a very limited and somewhat insulting association to make with the people everyone claims to like or respect. In terms of Dark members in general, I would say we're a pretty kick-back, fun-loving lot. Granted, friendly and humorous chat conversations may take a turn towards the gutters from time to time (and sometimes get flushed right down into the sewers)... but overall, I would say we're all right.

And that's my two cents worth ... if it's even worth that much.