So, I have a weird habit of asking random questions. Recently, I started to use such questions as a way to connect the virtual team that I lead. We rotate questions, one a day, which are meant to be quick & easy to answer, ranging from everything from who your teenage celebrity crush was to when was the last time you tried something new. One of the most recent questions asked about which character from Star Wars was our favorite. For me, I’ve noticed a pattern. The fictional figures I tend to admire & esteem most are the ones willing to sacrifice deep personal wants for a greater good, for a sense of a true, right, & moral character. Instead of crushing on Han Solo, I long preferred Luke, mainly because he dedicated himself to a calling as a Jedi, which demands a kind of austerity & asceticism & solitary way. With the second trilogy, I felt drawn to Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, and with the final trilogy I became fascinated by Ben Solo’s journey from Kylo Ren back to the light side of The Force. Yet, if you were to ask me who my favorite Marvel super is, I’d have to answer Captain America (used to be Spiderman when I was younger), & my preferred DC hero would be Superman. And, yes, I have reasons for this.

Why? If you ask, then I’d have to answer that I think it’s much tougher to be good than it is to be bad. To adhere to a strong moral code of what you consider to be right & good requires way more fortitude & selflessness than it does to give into temptation & selfish wants. There often, for such characters, seems to be a very clear dichotomy between right & wrong, good & bad, and true & false that guides journeys of self & trajectories of maturity.

Real life seldom presents such clean lines between pairs of binary opposites, as we learn that most of these social mores & codes of behavior rely on unstable constructs that are always shifting in discurvive exchanges as we age & learn more about the world, real life. Maybe there’s a part of me that envies the moral rectitude & crystal clear sense of purpose that guides these kinds of characters, that they all seem to have such selflessness that they sacrifice without complaint? Sure, we catch glimpses of Cap’s wishing he could be with Peggy Carter, just as we see Superman turn back time to save Lois Lane when she’s buried under rubble in her car. But the decision to be good for these supers doesn’t necessarily diminish their abilities or powers. To the contrary, for Jedis, the ability to remain on the light side of The Force depends on an ability to remain neutral, unattached & unmoved by corporeal passions. Those who fall to the dark side give in to temptation & find themselves swayed by volatile passions & ever-shifting wants. Whereas, for the Jedi Order, their central challenge demands a distancing of their conscious self from their physical body, in a monkish lifestyle of denying those vices that can corrupt.

And it is this clear sense of good from bad that I think draws me to many of my favorite authors, books, & characters in general. You see, as the youngest of six born to older parents (not as abnormal nowadays, but were considered “old”) from the Silent Generation (1933 and 1938 for birth years), I grew up in a more old-fashioned household with very traditional gender roles, expectations for moral conduct, & demands for politeness & etiquette. So, that upbringing left a lasting stamp upon my consciousness & conscience.

When you examine the authors I’ve studied & published scholarship about, you’ll find that my favorite period remains that of the Gilded Age through the Lost Generation–even though I like the long 19th Century as well. The writers who have always captured my interest were those who plumbed the depths of human character, searching for the good, right, & true soul, much like Diogenes & his lantern in searching for an honest man. Maybe that’s why the image of the beacon, the searchlight, the lighthouse dominate the landscape of my mind? I fixate on maps, coordinates, cartography, charting courses into unknown places & new frontiers, having been taught by my father (an Army man who loved topography & blazing new trails) how to navigate using the sun & a sense of direction which becomes intuitive from practice. Thus, images like the North Star illuminate my mind, providing a point from which I can orient myself & move through life, much like Odysseus in sailing his way back from Troy. This grand adventure to the West, in moving to Utah, has provided for me an adventure of growth, a kind of independence derived from balancing a career with parenthood & a pandemic, so far away from everything I’ve known growing up & from all the people, my family & friends, who would have provided me with comfort & security.

Maybe this season of my life has been one of self-discovery, of finding peace in a life of discontentment? In my last blog post, I wrote about the gap in life; here, I find that the gap described, once discovered, requires a certain aloneness & comfort level in being in that aloneness. That’s why you see Cap by himself, & Superman in his Fortress of Solitude, or even Luke, by himself, staring out at the Tattoine horizon with a blazing two-orbed sunset casting its orange rays over a sea of sand.

As I continue to age, I find that I dream of seeing Scandinavia & Iceland to see the Northern Lights. There’s something deep & magical in the stark icy landscapes that dwell beneath the dancing greens, emblazoned across a night sky, dotted with twinkling stars. Sometimes, at night & in winter, I’ll sit outside under a full moon, watching the expanse of space above, feeling so alone but also okay in my solitude. Almost always, I prefer that solitude. Like there’s some elusive part of me that nobody will ever reach or understand, & there’s a peace to be made in feeling that oneness, that lone-ness. Now, I certainly wouldn’t liken myself to the paragons of morality I’ve mentioned earlier, but perhaps I single out these figures to admire because they have to be alone in order to remain true to their sense of morality & character? Maybe I admire the self-sacrifice that requires? Perhaps, there’s a part of me that just feels other than… just different, needing to remain on my own so as not to give anyone me, myself, my conscious being? In undergrad, I became obsessed with Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, & I think that was because Edna Pontellier refused to compromise herself, her “self,” her artistic sense of being for a mundane world, for tedium & the routine of a rigidly constructed gender role. She’d rather perish in briny ocean water than drown in days of the unremarkable expected.

And, so, I leave you with that image of the lighthouse, with the illumination that springs from self-awareness & a refusal of remaining lost, unmoored, & unanchored. Rather like those heroes & protagonists who unapologetically strike out on their own, so too may you find the light that guides you in the dark or in deep waters, the light that inspires you & gives you courage, allowing you to feel unafraid to walk alone towards your best self, your most authentic you. May you find your True North.