"A Wise Man Learns by the Mistakes of Others, a Fool by His Own"

The above quotation is from a Latin proverb, which I believe exemplifies what Loeb was trying to say. I believe that "fool" is a bit too strong of a word in the quote, but it does certainly get the point across. There is so much that can be learned, just by listening to what others have to say. It's amazing how much insight can be received by listening to elders, yet everyday we often choose to follow our own path and make our own mistakes; well at least I do anyways. This is a generalization of course, but I think that one flaw in youth is the feeling that we are invincible.

Now, I really did not want to use him, since he has already been used in the past, but the best example I can think of is Luke Skywalker, at the moment. In The Empire Strikes Back we see him training on Dagobah beneath Master Yoda. While using the Force to heft containers and R2-D2 into the air, Luke has a vision of his friends on Cloud City in grave danger. He looses his grip over the Force, thus dropping everything (much to the droid's dismay). When Luke says that he has to go save them, Yoda's response is, "Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could, but you will destroy all for which they have fought and suffered."


Now, of course Luke disregards both Master Yoda's and Master Obi-Wan's council and goes to save his friends, and what happens? He loses a hand, almost falls through a gas planet to his death, and finds out that his father is the 2nd most abhorred being in the galaxy. Now he did obey their advice not to fall to the darkside, which was of course their greatest fear. They wouldn't want their only hope to trade sides suddenly. And he did save his friends, which was of course was his only intentions, so because of those two things, I believe that Luke was impulsive, but certainly not a fool.

I suppose Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker would be another good example of this point. Despite being told time and time again, that Jedi were not to form attachments, he continued to form them. He murdered the Tusken Raiders when his mother died, and then decided to run off and get married - another attachment. Then when he thought that he would not be able to save his wife, he made a pact with the devil which in turn ended with a 23 year dictatorship, a Galactic Civil War, Anakin killing his own wife, and the blood of thousands of Jedi on his hands. How many times was he told not to go down that path? Far too many times to count.

If only he would have listened to his elders, there probably never would have been a Galactic Empire - or at least not one with him at the helm. The Hero with No Fear was not really a true hero until he saved his son from Force lightning. Don’t get me wrong I like Anakin Skywalker a lot; he just seemed to make a LOT more mistakes than the norm, often due to the fact that since he was the Chosen One, he thought that he could not ever be harmed, in a way.

Another reason to listen to stories, which I believe goes hand in hand with wisdom is the fact that history repeats itself. I will admit, I'm not a huge history fan, but that certainly does not mean that it can't be learned from.

I really don't know what I stories I could tell about my life. I mean it never really seemed that extravagant or anything. The biggest things for me have been theatre, working with children, writing stories, going to church, and Star Wars. I grew up around my family doing community service, and it just seems wrong to me not to help people out. I guess I have just always felt that I could make even the most miniscule difference in someone's life, and that could be more important than anything else.