From the Editor’s Desk: Only What You Take with You (Premium)

As a 13-year-old, I eagerly anticipated the release of the second Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. I have clear memories of the build-up to that release, which included me reading Donald F. Gut's novelization right before the movie premiered. I devoured it in a single day, though I was confused by the ending, which I'm sure you'll recall was a cliffhanger. I had never heard of such a thing at that age, and when my dad asked me about the book, I told him that I felt it was unfair that it did not include the ending.

Empire is interesting on many levels. It's arguably the best of the Star Wars stories though it's impossible to overstate the impact the first movie had on me and so many others. I was fascinated by all of it, but I found the morality play during Luke's training, in which he's told to enter a cave that is strong in the Dark Side of the force. Yoda tells Luke he won't need his weapon, but Luke, still young and inexperienced, brings it anyway. Once inside the cave, he confronts a vision of his nemesis (and, we'd soon learn, father) Darth Vader, whom he defeats after a short lightsaber duel. Vader's severed head falls in front of him, and his helmet cracks open, revealing not the mangled form of his enemy but rather Luke's own face.

The vision was a trick, according to the book, a charade that Luke believed Yoda had arranged because he had carried his lightsaber inside despite his explicit warning not to. "Your weapon," Yoda had said. "You won't need it." But when asked what was in the cave, the little creature had cryptically said, "Only what you take with you." Luke's failure to heed this warning was a sign of his immaturity. Or something. I was 13 years old.

This lesson, while only vaguely understood, stuck with me. I later learned of the many influences that Star Wars creator George Lucas leaned on when creating his stories, from Joseph Campbell's concept of the hero's journey to various philosophies and religions and the film serials of his generation that had long since disappeared by the time I was of age. I delighted in all that, but to this day, I'm not entirely sure if there's a direct influence for the idea behind the Dark Side cave, and if so, what it is.

What I do know is that I pocketed this lesson immediately, and kept it with me. And that almost 45 years later, it still comes to mind when I find myself succeeding or failing to meet some challenge. My reactions to unexpected and unwelcome situations always trigger a bit of self-evaluation--I always wonder about what I could have done differently in negative moments, especially--a form of triage I can't get past. Less frequently, I can look back on whatever event and feel good about my reactions, see how my demeanor can make or break certain interactions.

This happened repeatedly during our recent trip to Berlin, and at some point, late in the trip, I finally blurted out a quick recap of this cave incident from Empire to my wife, whom I assume was...