on not becoming your father: Luke Skywalker's relationship with his father's identity is one of denial. the first words Luke says after the famous "I am your father" line are "no, that's not true, that's impossible". he cannot accept who and what his father is over the next film, Luke is haunted by the possibility of becoming like Vader. he sees the similarities between them, symbolized by his artificial hand. the climax of Return of the Jedi, the throne room scene, is predicated on the Emperor trying to turn Luke to the dark side; that is, to allow his Vader-nature (his father-nature) to take over, to become just like his father now, a more superficial film would have resolved with Luke saying, "no, I'll never be him!" and then killing Vader and the Emperor; cue big celebration. but that's not what we get. we get a more complicated and archetypal resolution Luke overcomes Vader, but refuses to kill him; he resists the *total* rejection of his father. instead, he turns to the Emperor and throws his lightsaber away. "you've failed," Luke says, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me" Luke doesn't say, "I'll never be him." he implies instead, "I AM like him." the climactic moment then becomes an acceptance of his father-nature but of course, in accepting his father, he transcends him. Vader wouldn't have made that choice, but Luke does, and so by saying, "I am him", he is showing he is quite different. by owning the Jedi-nature of his father (the Anakin-nature), Luke is also owning the fallibility. it is not "I am him but better", but simply, "I am him, with the same potential failings, and I own that". it is a rejection of the path of Vader, of pure violence, but because the path of Vader IS a path of rejection, the rejection of that path must be through acceptance this is the paradox of "what you resist persists." when we deny parts of our nature, when we try to reject or destroy them, they grow stronger. by saying "I am not that" we become MORE like that I have a client who has a father who never finishes a project. he's a perpetual tinkerer, which was a source of stress in the family household. my client, in the past, had a fear of being like that, so he's tried to force himself to finish projects he wasn't really inspired by... and because it was this forceful, gritted-teeth thing, he ended up abandoning them before the finish line... and thus became a perpetual tinkerer by trying to escape his father he moved closer to becoming him. and let me tell you, this happens *all the time*. it's one of the strongest patterns in the human psyche. rejection of a certain dynamic strengthens that dynamic transcendence happens through acceptance and inclusion. when we *include* what we are afraid of in our sense of self, then we necessarily *enlarge* our sense of self. an enlarged sense of self = transcendence when he says, "I am like my father", Luke becomes a larger version of himself in precisely the way Vader could not. that's the movement. that's the opportunity. it can be extraordinarily difficult... but it's available