That Line About Fear from Yoda of Star Wars
Before anything else, let me assure you, there are NO SPOILERS in this post. Because for one, I’m not about to ruin something for people and two, as I am writing this, Alla and I haven’t watched Star Wars Episode VII. So, yes, it’s safe to read this.
I am not a hard-core Star Wars fan. I’ll admit to that. I did not watch it during my childhood but I was familiar with it. I have actually just watched all the other 6 movies last week because Alla is definitely a Star Wars fan and when she found out Star Movies was having a marathon, she practically never left the our living room. I watched it mainly because she loves it so much and then of course, I understood why. It is a great story after all and now I am excited to see the 7th one too!
One line that hit me in this entire franchise (so far) is the very popular line that Yoda told Anakin about fear. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Amazing how much truth there is in this line and it applies to everything, even in our journey to equality.
Alla and I have been trying our best to not allow hate to “win” even when we are being attacked. We always take a step back and remind ourselves that anti-LGBT people do not understand us - the LGBT. Since they do not understand us, they fear our so-called “agenda”. Since they fear us, they become angry and since they are angry, they hate. It is so easy to fight hate with hate, anger with anger and fear with fear. And this is a common scenario. We’re all too familiar that most (not all) religious people who do not understand us, they can say really mean and hurtful things about us and they do. And how do most of “us” respond? They call us names, we call them names.
Do you see it? It goes both ways, we, the LGBT community, are guilty of the same thing. We do not understand them, we fear what they can do - which is denying us of our rights - so we become angry and we hate. Now, it goes around full circle and it just keeps on going. We do not move forward.
I must admit, sometimes, it is really hard to stop myself from biting the bait and start lashing out on anti-LGBT remarks but I try my best to stop. Take a breather and then respond with only love in my mind and my heart. So far, you know what happens, they either give up because they cannot get what they want - which is to get us to be angry or we just end up agreeing to disagree and leave with mutual respect.
The best way to silence hate is with love. It takes practice and a whole lot of self-control. But it can be done.
Love trumps hate. You just need to choose to love. It starts with YOU.
Photo Credit: GeekFitness.net
