Try

The new semester is about to start, and in our first meeting of the term, one of my colleagues was talking about a project to help students with resiliency; basically, helping them learn to hang in there when things get challenging. Another colleague was sceptical that we would be able to help very many in the couple years they’re at the college.

Another friend is having some trouble enjoying Star Wars, because (in part) the way the plot has been laid out, we know that many of the successes that we see on screen are only temporary. The Empire keeps coming back. To me, these two things are connected.

They’re also connected to the King Arthur stories (wait come back), which can be similarly bleak, if you think about it. I mean we know how it ends. Arthur dies. Camelot falls. His knights scatter. We’re left to bemoan what has been lost. Even most of his knights (except Galahad, who is no fun) generally fall short of the ideals Camelot is supposed to be founded on. So does Arthur. Does it all mean anything?

As I’ve argued before, I think it absolutely does. First of all, because it is a noble endeavour to try to live up to something great, even if you don’t quite do it. It’s admirable to try to hit a really hard target, even if you don’t. Trying to be good, trying to be a better person, or to do good in the world, has value. Just about no-one is perfect and never makes a mistake. But if we’re trying to be better than our missteps, that’s still worth something.

It absolutely matters, in the Star Wars stories, that things were better for a while. Heck I’m deeply suspicious, these days, of anything that tells me that the bad guys were vanquished forever and everything was fine thereafter. Because that’s not usually how it works. There always does seem to be that next problem. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter that we fixed the last one, and that we shouldn’t be proud of that. It does, and we should. We made it better. Star Wars, very generally, is about trying to make things better.

It absolutely matters, to me, if we help a few of our students, even if it isn’t most of them. Heck, I think it’s worth doing this project even if we only help one. Because then we helped one. We made it better. All we can do is try our best with the resources we’ve got, and hope that maybe we make it quite a lot better instead of a little better. But even a little better isn’t nothing.

So yes, I still enjoy it when they blow up the Death Star, even though I know the Empire is going to build another one. I still like it when Spidey foils the Kingpin’s evil plot(s), even though there will undoubtedly be another villain along in a minute. And I still love Sir Gawain, King Arthur, and the rest of that hot mess of a knightly court. Because they tried, man. And things were better, even if only for a while.

One of my favourite parts of Andor was the character of Nemik, the idealistic Rebel with his manifesto. The extract from that in the final episode never fails to move me, and the last line of it – “Remember this: Try.” – is a motto I am going to try to adopt as I recover from my surgery and try to get back to a place where I can write. And I think it’s an idea we need in the world. Even if our efforts only make things a little better for a little while. That’s still not nothing.

Thanks for reading.