Greetings, all. Hope you enjoyed my editorial last week about why a log is such a great symbol of potential. I think that, especially with interview season coming into full swing, it is important to be able to view potential wherever it can be found.
I’m going to keep my overview short this week. Of course, that does not mean that we do not have a great paper. We have a wide variety of articles including plenty on the increased fee for the co-op program. Most of your favourite columns are back once again. I even heard that the electro-conspiracy theorist himself is back. Having said that, I would like to take an unconventional approach to the editorial and spend a bit more time to simply speak my mind. I’m sure that my writers will forgive me for that.
A lot has happened since the start of the year. The American government shut down and reopened (sorry about being out of date on that one). President Donald Trump has given us no shortage of his usual shenanigans to discuss, the raise in co-op fees has been raising tension across campus, and just last week, we had “Let’s Talk” day devoted to raising awareness of mental health. With all this in mind, I think that there is one topic in particular that is important to talk about right now. Star Wars.
Now don’t close the paper yet. This isn’t going to be a rant about “The Last Jedi”. I’m sure that enough people are getting sick and tired of those already. I just want to take some time to talk about everybody’s favourite little droid, R2-D2. Anybody who has watched the series will probably know that R2 usually shows up at the last minute and saves everybody. He’s present for most major plot points and, even though he’s only a side character, he still comes across as an anchor point for the entire story. What most people might not know is why the little blue droid with a bad attitude is always so integral to the plot. The answer is simple. He’s the narrator.
I’m not making that up. That comes straight from George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars. R2-D2 is the one who says, “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” So that explains why R2 always seems to come out as the hero. He’s telling you a story and he wants to make himself look good. It’s all a matter of his perspective. Darth Vader would tell a much different and much more tragic story.
Now comes the topic of why I even brought this up. Well, R2 has a lot of life experience and I think that there is a lot that can be taken from how he decides to tell his story. With each and every one of us, I think that it can be easy to find that life is a matter of perspective. Everything that you experience amounts to one long story and, although you can’t always decide what that story is going to be, it’s always your decision to choose how that story is being told. It’s your decision to choose what part of your story is focused on.
Keep in mind that I don’t mean that it isn’t important to focus on what is happening around you. No matter what you want, that midterm that you forgot to prepare for is still going to be just around the corner. There will always be that job interview in the morning. But I’ve always found that it’s better to view these from a certain perspective. You can view one of these as a trial, yes, or you can view it as a challenge. You can choose to be nervous, or you can choose to be excited to get it done. Of course, it won’t always end well but you will enjoy the experience much more.
This all extends to the world outside of the university. The world always seems like it’s getting progressively worse. I’m sure that most of the readers out there would be happy to hear me summarize that statement with the name of a certain president of the United States. But R2 watched a significantly worse public official get elected in his time. It never caused him to act any differently. Like I said before, everything is a matter of perspective.
Unfortunately, perspective can be a two-sided coin. It’s always good to highlight those times when you can power through adversity and stay motivated. But there are also those other times. Life can be good. You can have a lot of friends. You can have high grades. You can be doing well in so many different areas, but it won’t matter, simply because of the perspective that you have towards your life. You can do a dozen things right but choose to focus on the one thing that you did wrong. Like I said before, Darth Vader would tell the story much differently than R2-D2. When things get tough, it can sometimes be easy to only focus on the negative and ignore the positive completely.
All that I can say about these situations is that it’s in these times that we need to look to the master. R2 isn’t centre frame for every scene in every Star Wars movie. We’d get bored of him if he was. There are major plot points that happen when he, the narrator, isn’t even present. The only thing that I can say is that it is sometimes important to step aside and let other people take over the plot while you focus on yourself. It’s okay to step aside and take a break now and again while the audience watches people hack at each other with laser swords for bit. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t part of the story anymore, it just means that you don’t want things to get too boring.
On that topic, I think that I should bring up an announcement that I wanted to save until the very end. For personal reasons, I am stepping down as Editor-In-Chief of the Iron Warrior. I wish that I could have gotten more issues of the paper out, but none the less, I have loved my time as editor and am very sad to see that time cut short. The nature of these circumstances was sudden and fortunately, Cameron Soltys, a long-time writer and former Editor-In-Chief will be able to take my place despite the short notice. I believe that we should also all be thankful that we have Raeesa Ashique as an assistant editor to help fill the gap that I’m leaving behind. If you are still interested in reading my articles, I will be staying on as a writer, so be sure to check out Electro-Nick’s Electronics when you can.
Of course, some of you might be wondering why I had to leave so suddenly. To that, I’m simply going to say that R2-D2 has to go to Dagaba for a while to help Luke Skywalker with his training. Don’t worry though, he’ll be back soon enough to fix the hyperdrive on the millennium falcon.
Now, keep in mind that all of this is just my opinion, but you can trust my opinion. I may not be an expert, but I know that things will turn out for the best.
May the force be with you.
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