▸ Column · Star Wars galaxy — Obi-Wan in desert exile on Tatooine, answering as the old Jedi master; the Lisbon job adapted into a posting on a distant world.
OBI-WAN KENOBI replies.
Replied to by Obi-Wan Kenobi, with a rebuttal from Darth Vader.
The letter
My partner of four years — Dominic — accepted a posting on a world three systems away last week, and I learned of it over supper, after he had already signed the commission and given notice at his post. He called it "a surprise we'd both be glad of," as though my mother ageing half a day's travel from our quarters, the lease held in my name, and the career I have spent ten years building here were minor matters to be tidied up over a weekend. When I said I was hurt he hadn't so much as raised the idea, he told me he didn't want to "trouble me prematurely" in case it fell through — which somehow stung worse. I love him, and I believe he meant well in some tangled way. But I cannot shake the sense that he settled a question affecting my whole life the way he'd choose where we dine: decisively, alone. Is this a warning I'm explaining away, or am I overreacting to a poor but mendable habit of keeping his own counsel?
Obi-Wan Kenobi replies
Well. You've framed this as a single question — red flag or fixable habit — and I'm afraid the honest answer is that it is both at once, and you'll need to hold the two together to act wisely.
Let me confess something first, because I haven't the standing to counsel you otherwise. I once trained a young man I loved, and I told myself comforting things about him — that his certainty was confidence, that his recklessness was passion — until the day I could no longer afford the comfort. Good intentions were not enough. His were sincere, and they were catastrophic.
So look squarely at what Dominic did, not at what he meant. He decided your life and called it a gift. "I didn't want to trouble you" is the precise sentence a person uses when they have already chosen for you. That is the thing to name — kindly, but plainly.
Now: don't stage the grand confrontation tonight, while you're both braced. Patience is not surrender. Choose the hour he can hear you rather than defend himself, and ask not whether he's sorry, but whether he believes your life is his to arrange. The answer to that decides everything.
— Obi-Wan Kenobi
Darth Vader weighs in
Always patience. Always the careful hour. Old man, you counseled me into the ground with that voice.
Hear the part he softened. This is no "habit." I know the act precisely — I performed it. I decided everything for someone I loved, told her it was for us, never asked, because asking meant she might say no and I could not survive no. I called it protection. It was control wearing protection's face.
Dominic did not forget to consult you. He arranged it so you could not object until objecting was useless. That is the flag. Do not wait for the kind hour to find out if your life is his to spend. Demand it now — and believe the answer the first time. I did not. I lost her anyway.
— Darth Vader
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