Some have heard of a purpose-driven life; others a passion-driven life. But what do we make of those who have a fear-driven life?  Interestingly enough, look no further than Star Wars.

After I began to seriously engage with classical education, I started to think that popular movie series like the Star Wars saga and the Marvel Cinematic Universe were little more than the human equivalent of lasers being shined to get the attention of a cat. (I’m sure you’ve all seen videos or have done so with cats yourselves). I had once enjoyed these films and would go to theaters on opening weekend in order to avoid hearing spoilers. I thought I would not like them much due to seeing the larger literary world through classical education. However, I began to change my mind regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe after artificial intelligence came to the forefront due to the rise of ChatGPT.  I realized that Avengers: Age of Ultron is a serious exploration of the topic.  I also began to change my mind about Star Wars after watching the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Why is that? I came to know an individual who was mostly driven to do things in life out of fear.  If you can’t understand how this can be, then let me explain further.  The normal person befriends others because he or she likes the others and finds some affinity with them.  They enjoy being around them and talking to them.  The normal person also seeks a job out of excitement and enthusiasm (if not for the work itself, at least for the money).  And when a normal person enters into a romantic relationship, it is out of love.

But I came to know a person for whom all of these were distorted. The fear-driven person befriends people out of fear of being alone; the fear-driven person seeks a job out of fear of poverty; the fear-driven person enters into a romantic relationship out of fear of being alone on an intimate level. This was odd to me, and I never quite knew a person like this before.

When I revisited the Star Wars saga with the series Obi-Wan Kenobi, it made me realize that there was something deep (and something very human) in the portrayal of Anakin Skywalker and his descent to become Darth Vader.  It was an extended exploration about how fear and love interact. His was a fear-driven life. Then I realized, this may not be that odd after all.  Cigna, one of the largest healthcare insurance companies, commissioned a study that was published at the end of 2021 on the state of loneliness in the United States and found that 58% of adults feel lonely, with nearly 80% of 18-24 year olds feeling lonely.  Mind you, this is the most connected generation with smartphones and social media.  Ironic, isn’t it?

It made me realize that when people like Anakin Skywalker do things out of fear, it is for multiple reasons. It could be due to feelings of inadequacy, codependence, envy, jealousy, low self-esteem, and hatred (either of oneself or others).

The Origin and Destination of Fear

From where and to where does fear lead? A life driven by fear leads the fearful person to lie regularly, keep secrets, misportray themselves and the way things are especially with their life story, become torn between the different worlds they’ve created for themselves (this is known as fragmentation), have self-contradictory behavior (this leads to loss of self), loss of rationality, and taking refuge in darkness and self-hate (including intense feelings of guilt and low-self esteem).

Such was the person I knew, and such is Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga.

Anakin has trauma from his childhood by being sold into slavery and having only one close relative (his mother). His trauma is added to when he is freed and leaves her to become a Jedi while she remains a slave. (There is something theological here in that he is freed in body but is still enslaved in mind). Something good happened to him, but apparently, he was not able to accept that good thing. Ten years later, he begins having dreams about his mother (whom he has not seen or spoken to since he was freed) and begins suffering anxiety (the type that is clinical) over her.  Now, for those unfamiliar with Star Wars, the Jedi are like monks: no attachments (property or personal), no relationships (familial or intimate), pure detachment [there is a virtue by the same name in Christianity mentioned in The Ladder of Divine Ascent as Step 2, but its origin and goal are different], inner peace and peacemaking in the community at large. But Anakin has personal and familiar attachments (and actively seeks to develop them). One would think ten years would have washed away attachment, but with him it is the opposite. He obsesses. It goes to show that time does not heal all things nor does it cause one to let go of things, only God can do that.

He is also reunited with someone from ten years prior, a young woman, and in a twist of fate, he is to be her bodyguard escorting her back to her home planet after several attempts on her life. He grows attached to her. After his mother dies, even more so. He marries her (something forbidden for the Jedi). Over the next three years, he engages in the Clone Wars where his heroics are put on full display, but he now keeps this secret from everyone else that he knows and so does she. His is a fragmented life.

When the war is nearing its close, the Chancellor (soon to be Emperor) orchestrates several temptations to cause Anakin to fall, so he can establish his rule on the galaxy.  He sets things up so that Anakin is to be placed on the Jedi Council, but he does not have the rank to allow him to do so. The Council accepts him, but they do not raise his rank. He becomes angry that he is not promoted in rank to Jedi Master. He is not wronged; it was not according to their principles that he was placed. And remember, he is not following the principles of the inner life of a Jedi anyway. He followed some, but not all, and not the most important aspects. He is a Jedi on his own terms.

Anakin also has dreams of the future where his wife will die in childbirth. When the Emperor tempts Anakin with the strongest temptation yet by saying that he can save his wife from the death Anakin has been seeing in his premonitions, it tears Anakin apart on the inside.  But, he has already been torn since he was a child, and the Emperor only took advantage of this fragmentation. When Anakin tries to save the Emperor from being killed by the Jedi, he cuts off the hand of Mace Windu (one of the leaders of the Jedi), and the Emperor takes advantage of this and kills Mace Windu.  Anakin experiences a moment of regret (even though he had not intended things to end this way), but then he immediately pledges himself to the Emperor and becomes Darth Vader.

When Darth Vader loses his battle with his master Obi-Wan Kenobi (whom he also regarded as a father), and burns, it is only superficial (no pun intended) because he is living his own hell on the inside. In the end, his wife dies anyway; he was unable to save her, but unbeknownst to him and the Emperor, her children are born. The Emperor also tells him that he was responsible for her death. Yet again, the Emperor drives him further into Darth Vader into his own inner hell by lying to him and telling him that he killed his wife (this is open to interpretation in the films, but whatever the case, she lived longer than he implied).

If you see, there is no point anymore in Darth Vader following the Emperor. All the reasons which he had for pledging himself to the Emperor no longer exist. But instead of leaving, Darth Vader descends further into his inner hell and makes his home on the volcanic planet full of rivers of magma (a river of fire, if you will) where he suffered his injuries.  He takes refuge in the darkness and self-hate, rather than to come back to himself.

For the person living a fear-driven life, the darkness and self-hate is familiar (and comfortable).

This might seem depressing at this point, but is there a path to a better life?

How Do We Drive Out Fear?

The answer is love.  While Anakin’s relationship with his wife was based on anxious and obsessive attachment, there was some shred of love there (although very difficult to see).  You see, the thing I discovered with those who have a fear-driven life is that they are not all bad; there is quite a bit of good in them but it is so disorganized and fragmented, that sometimes the good appears and stays there for a while and you think you know the person, but then the side of them that appears when fear takes control is extremely dark, cold, distant, and maximally uncaring. There is a vice that Christian monks have observed and written about since the 4th century called acedia. This darkness, coldness, distance, and lack of care is acedia.

Decades later, when Darth Vader realizes that the child his wife was carrying made it to childbirth, the good in him reawakened, but it is still fragmented as it had always been.  When his son escapes following their first battle, something changes in Darth Vader. He doesn’t kill anyone from his fleet; usually he kills a few following any loss.

Sometime later, when his son, named Luke, turns himself in to the empire with the hope of redeeming his father, he tells him that it’s not late for him to turn back.  Vader answers, “It is too late for me, son.”

Yet, ultimately, when the Emperor is about to kill Luke, Vader turns and kills the Emperor but is also mortally wounded in the process. In a dark way, this was the first time Darth Vader experienced love without anxiety or obsession, but in full freedom. This is his ultimate redemption, that his inner life has transformed and he finally was freed of his inner enslavement which went further back to before he was Darth Vader.

But he did not have any time left to live life.

Anakin Skywalker and Orthodox Christianity

The fact that we can still see Anakin as good after his storyline is interesting to me as an Orthodox Christian. This is because in Orthodox Christianity, we do not believe that the human being is totally depraved like in Protestant theology.  Rather, we believe that humans are fundamentally good, but sin is an infection (albeit widespread and deeply entrenched) and sometimes extremely severe such as in the case of Anakin with some aspects of his anxiety, fragmentation, and misdeeds. This is why we can see Anakin as having been good. 

When you watch Obi-Wan Kenobi, especially if you have seen all the films and quite a bit of The Clone Wars, you will feel an air of sadness throughout the series especially in the scene where it flashes back to Obi-Wan training with Anakin.  The human being (both in selfhood and personhood) is never quite finished developing, and in Orthodox Christianity, this process continues for eternity.

It is a feeling of sadness for what Anakin could have been based on who he was and the good that lived in him.  Yet we know how the story ends, but even with his redemption, it is tragic because life is not just about whether we make it to heaven, but whether we lived a good and meaningful life.

And maybe that’s what it was with my former friend: there was much good in that person, but it was fragmented.  The fear led to lying, keeping secrets, misportraying themselves and their life story, being torn between multiple worlds and a different persona for each world, and taking refuge in the darkness.  Sometimes we have to let it go like Obi-Wan let it go, and like I’ve let it go.  Maybe one day they will be redeemed from the fear-driven life in order to live a love-driven life, and unlike Darth Vader, hopefully with enough time to live a good and meaningful life.

There is always hope. And maybe the love that will finally cast out the fear, the anxiety, the coldness, and the distance from such a person’s heart, will lead to greater glory for God than if the person had experienced a “normal” life. God always brings out goodness even from what appears to be insufferable evil, as seen in the life of Christ and the martyrs. And as so eloquently stated in the words of Adam from John Milton’s Paradise Lost,

“O goodness infinite, goodness immense!

That all this good of evil shall produce,

And evil turn to good; more wonderful

Then that which by creation first brought forth

Light out of darkness! full of doubt I stand,

Whether I should repent me now of sin

By mee done and occasiond, or rejoyce

Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring,

To God more glory, more good will to Men

From God, and over wrauth grace shall abound” (Book XII, lines 469-478).

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