Resignation Letters

Collected Resignations of the Dark Council

Greetings.

After much discussion and thought, I regret to tender the resignation of the entire Dark Side Council to the Force Academy, effective immediately. Fatum Operandi will, obviously, continue under its own weight, with the members of the former DJC here working on the FO without change. Any decision about the leadership of the Dark Side here I leave in Forcemaster’s hands. Personal decisions on involvement here outside of this leadership resignation are up to individuals.

In the past year, I have been trying to build something of quality for the Dark Side, when for even longer than I have been here, there was no clear program to be had for any aspect. Who knew what quality was, or what a Force program should be, or what we were all here for? I didn’t. Slowly, some form emerged with Bandraoi’s experience and input, and something we both believed in grew and took shape into a program. Something comprehensively vast and open and worthwhile, and exciting. I added awesome people to the Council who jived with what we were building, and for a year, the program grew slowly. It took a while, but worthwhile things take that time. I really value everyone who has worked on the FO with me, everyone.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the Force Academy grew in the same way. We have a horrible dualistic system here brought out of some great movies. Light and Dark, with some Shadow thrown in. It was interesting to explore the differences and similarities, except… somewhere, somehow, the sense of exploration stopped, and the entire thing has been reduced to something I’m just not proud of anymore, and don’t want to be a part of. There is so much arguing over the message that the meaning often gets lost, some people are so, so close-minded that it hurts to watch, and the depth of meaning I would expect of a site like this is often dumbed down so as not to disturb peoples’ existing views of the world and life. If this is what people want, that’s fine, but it’s not what we’re after.

What are we after? Well, that’s another problem. We have carried a label, the Dark Side, for quite a while here, and though I am still pleased with and stand by the definition I set for it here, we have not been able to escape the fact that a number of people here seem to have a strongly vested interest in seeing us as social misfits, evil, devils, destruction-bent hoods. The sheer amount of persecution here is phenomenal; if you don’t consider it such, maybe you should take a step back and take a good look.

Guys, we’re not Vader wannabees. We’re not evil, puppy-kicking sociopathic ego-driven hoodlooms looking to wreck your life for kicks. We consist of a group of people trying to find our Path in life, though our own means, and we happen to be doing our own individual seeking together. This seems to be a rather alien concept here, people agreeing to disagree and coexisting without group think. This does likely go for everyone reading this, but in the Dark’s case… there’s been an automatic handicap. It’s extremely frustrating to spend a year on an effort, writing, researching, thinking and talking, to be accused of things we don’t believe or do, to hear people are being told not to read what we write because of false assumptions or that we’re attacking them in their dreams, and to read assumptions that can’t even have the comfort of ignorance, considering the sheer amount of text to the contrary that has been publically available for about two months now on the FO site. I can see misunderstanding the Light for lack of material available, but folks, the Dark has been extremely open about what we each think about things, very active in posting, and yet… the lies persist. I can only assume that people want so badly to believe we’re Vader that they have stopped listening to the truth. And when that happens, I’m sorry, communication and openness suffer and sometimes die.

I’ll restate something a lot of people have pulled up to try to get across this idea, but few seem interested in taking to heart. Good intentions are nothing without the true will to put intentions to action:

The Force Academy sees its duty in furthering the beliefs and knowledge of the force, to aid all individuals in their personal quest for spiritual fulfilment, regardless of the ‘aspect’ (light/dark/shadow) of their choice.

We believe striving for spiritual fulfilment to be an honourable goal that requires maturity to understand our place among all aspects of the universe. This maturity must contain mutual respect for all scholars of the force and uphold the balance between all aspects of the force. Those who wish to destroy one side of the balance fail to understand the principle of this balance and are suggested to leave this academy, as this community is a temple of coexistence on the grounds of mutual respect and integrity.

The Force Academy is failing to do what it stands for, and it’s been a lot of effort, time and frustration in trying to stick to the above statement in the face of all the pettiness, close-mindedness, glory-seeking and a willingness to keep to the fiction at the expense of the real. There is much talk about improving the FA, but when it comes right down to it, the IC is apathetic and the problems as we see them are so deep-rooted in the psyches of the people who make up the leadership here that it’s not a simple matter. As much as I wish you all the best in fixing it, we as a group have decided that the amount of time and energy put into something that fights us at every turn can be better directed at Fatum Operandi’s potential and development.

I’ll leave the others to post their additional words on this thread. As for me, I’m still reachable through my FO address, and the various IMs things I hang out on. I will not be logging in here again, so if you actually want me to hear something in response to this, email it. Good luck to everyone on your personal quests.

Satelle Fatum Operandi

There is not a lot left to say additionally to the initial post here, but I’ll add in a few thoughts of my own.

I have been a participant on this site for 2 years. As such, I’ve watched as the Academy has gone up and down, through periods of growth and stagnation. I’ve seen people working to effect change, and people intent on maintaining the status quo. When I first created an account it was with the intent of "hanging out" with people who 1. loved Star Wars and 2. actually believed in some of the Broad Concepts that the movies touch upon. At that point in time, the Academy was small, the Conferences on the Boards were few, and a larger number of individuals actually posted meaningful thoughts. Our numbers have grown, the Boards have expanded to meet the demands of various Councils and Individuals, yet the number of folks who seem to be actively pursuing Growth has not altered much in that time. Many people have become discouraged with the upstream rowing, and left the site. This is not something new, it has been occurring since I first joined.

I initially signed up with the Light path, though my heart wasn’t truly in it. This was due to numerous reasons, one of the main ones was simply because the people leading the Light at that time had open minds and hearts, and their goals were similar to mine. Those individuals are no longer with us, and haven’t been for a long time. As life grew busy, I’d spent less time here, and when things became such that I had more online time once more, much of the Light had turned into petty bickering. To be fair, the same was occurring throughout the Shadow and Dark as well.

I observed what was happening for some months, weighing whether to remain or to leave, watching people, posting comments where I thought it would make a difference. Out of all the chaos, a new order came about in the Dark. I visited off and on with various members of the Darkside during those times, considering what their goals were, how they viewed the path. Finally I made my decision to join Officially the Dark path, and that was one of the best decisions I could have made. I became involved in a project and dream which has merit, has direction, and I feel is full of vitality. It’s been over a year now that I’ve been an active member of the Dark Council here. We’ve put in a lot of effort. Our vision slowly adapted as what we have built went through various birthpangs and leaps of growth.

To those who were with us in the beginning and went their own ways, I valued then and value now the input and guidance which you contributed. Though there were disagreements of both personal natures and program related issues, your voices are missed. You know who you are.

As has been already said, the dualistic view of Life, the Universe and Everything here at the Force Academy is, to my way of viewing things, a hindrance to truly developing the mind fully. There is more than just Good Lightsiders and Evil Darksiders and "tolerated delusional" Shadowsiders. For it has not escaped my attention that more often than not, those who choose to walk alone or in the Shadows are often mocked. And sadly, my voice was one of those contributing to the disdain of the Shadow philosophies. While I still see the Shadows as many independent people gathering to share ideas and wisdoms, I cannot say any longer that they are merely fence-sitters. On that note, I see the insistence on boxing people up into Paths as ultimately harmful in nature. It sets up the Us vs. Them agenda. To maintain that, people are then lumped together into Good vs. Bad. And those who don’t want to be a part of such behaviors are turned upon like a foreign ant in a new colony.

I honestly believe that while there are dualistic natures throughout much of life, there are more sides, or views, to philosophical matters. People are fond of quoting such things as "without the Light there would be no Dark" or "the opposite of White is Black" and other such Absolutes. This is narrow-minded and limiting. If you stay inside that dichotomy of thinking, you are missing so much of the greater picture. I would say the majority of people truly believe that their view of the world, deity, right/wrong, is the correct one. But when you start comparing these views, you find more than just two.

Because of this, and many other things in my life, I have made the commitment to furthering the Fatum Operandi program. We are not interested in perpetuating the mythos of StarWars in the way it has been done here. While the SW genre has been instrumental in gathering many minds in one place, it also has limitations. We don’t live in a world that is part of an inter-galactic network. Lightsabers are not part of working technology. There are no Sith, nor Jedi. Not to mention that once you start deeply analyzing the movies, looking at all the major characters, you find that they are not cut & dried, black & white, right & wrong, good & evil. Yet here at the Force Academy, one finds those prejudices everywhere.

Trying to combat those stereotypes, to show people what we’ve been working on with the Fatum Operandi, how we’ve grown past the stereotypes into something which ALL people are welcome to participate in, has been an uphill battle. As was once said, it is like pushing a boulder, endlessly, uphill. I have only a finite amount of energy, physical and mental, to put into such things. And folks, I no longer care to waste those efforts here. If you want to see what I feel holds meaning and potential, take the time to actually read and think about the things we’ve all written at the FO site.

For myself, I will occasionally stop by the FA, read through posts, perhaps even comment from time to time. I no longer consider myself a part of the Darkside here. If anything, for you who just have to box people up and slap a label on them, you can consider me an Independent. However, in truth, my status will be more along the lines of "occasional visitor". May all of you have the guts and courage to truly follow what YOU believe in, and not what some dogma, movie, program, master, etc has told you is the Right or Honorable way.

over & out.

Qadira Fatum Operandi

picks up her boots This party is dead, see ya!!

Lee’Lah

Hola y’all,

Well, I am tendering my resignation as a member of the Dark Council here at the Force Academy and will remain with the rest of the FO crew working full time at Fatum Operandi. It wasn’t an easy decision for me to make especially after almost two years of being here and the things I’ve learned and the peeps I’ve met. I’ve met people here that I can truly call friend, and learned from almost every one of you. However evolution is now taking place, the kids are grown and moving out to bigger and better things.

The FA as a whole of late and some other things specifically have just sucked too much energy from me. Too many closed minds, too many searchings for things that aren’t there, clinging to ideals that aren’t necessarily healthy. Way too much rationalization and lying to yourselves (not everyone here) and then to see that being taught as ok…that’s just not right. However, as I’ve stated before on these boards, not my aspect…not my problem. I’ve dealt with the lies about us and how we are and no matter how much we explain, no one listens, or it seems that our voices are not heard. So as of now, the delicate balance that the FA used to have is broken to a degree. Have fun people, and may you learn well here as much as you can and with open a mind as possible. I’ll still lurk about here upon occasion, but that’s it. I’m outta here. Time for the real learning to begin anew. My e-mail box is always open for any who want to chat a bit.

May the Force guide your way,

"Strength and Honour"

"Evil is only called thus by one who either has something to hide, or is insecure in themselves"

-Marcar Tezroc

Once again, due to RL issues, I’m a tad late on my response.

There really isn’t much for me to add to all this except that I don’t intend to disappear all together from FA … I will still visit the chat when I can and post replies on occasion to some of the discussions. My involvement with FA has been rather limited at best anyway for the past year, so for me, not much is really going to change from my standpoint.

For those of you who don’t quite understand, the real issue here with FO breaking away from FA is an issue of time and energy expenditure. Pure and simple. The time that FO Council members place here is less time placed towards the FO itself. That was the real heart of the issue. It would have become a point of contention anyway, it just happened to be brought about sooner due to matters of closed-mindedness, as mentioned in the first few posts.

The other issue here revolves around where the FO is going. As many can agree, the FO was not your "stereotypical dark" and this was a form of aggravation for some who really wanted to maintain the whole "Sith" concept around the FA’s dark side. Now that the curriculum is growing and taking on its own life, I would venture to say the FO is moving even further away from that perceived concept. In fact, I think we are going to be hard-pressed to be placed in a category at all. The FO pretty much defines itself and stands on its own.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that no one is running away. Sometimes you just outgrow your roots and have no choice but to move on. This is pretty much what happened here. In all honesty, I have very mixed feelings about the break-off, but I understand why it needs to happen and that the Council feels it will be to the benefit of the FO in the long run.

So, when you look at it from one perspective, you can say we really haven’t gone anywhere. The FO still remains and training can still be found there. A1 is still open to anyone who wishes to find out what we are about and there will always be a couple of us (myself, for one) who will be dropping in to say "hi". To some extent, the FO was always somewhat separate from the FA; it’s just the division is now more defined.

That’s about it for me. No goodbyes, as I don’t intend to stop visiting, and my e-mail is always open for anyone who wishes to drop a line.

BANDRAOI Fatum Operandi Council

~ NEVER ARGUE WITH AN IDIOT. THEY DRAG YOU DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL, THEN BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE.

Just as a child grows up and moves on to other things away from the home, parents, friends and surroundings they grew up with, so too must we move on to the place we feel our destiny leads.

Thanks to all those that contributed to my growth over the years some of you know who you are, others don’t. I am not going to make a long list of those people as it would take way too long.

Farewell All

Paimon

What the Lion cannot manage to do, the Fox can – German Proverb