Me: “Master Yoda, I am pleased you’ve agreed to speak with me.
Yoda:” My pleasure it is.”
Me: “As much as I respect you, Master, still I have to be true to myself, and disagree with you on something you said once.”
Yoda: “Always to your true self you should be.”
Me: “Right. Anyway, quite sometime ago, you said, ‘Do or don’t do, there is no try.’ I have to say, Master Yoda, I totally disagree with that statement.”
Yoda: “Explain why, you should.”
Me: “Well, most of us, if not all, try many things, and fail at some of them. This ‘do or don’t do’ shit just doesn’t fly with me. Sure, we do stuff all the time, but when we’re not sure about the outcome of an activity, we call it ’trying,’ and I don’t see a thing wrong with that. And further, I believe that if there is no ‘try,’ then there damn sure isn’t any ‘do.’ ‘Trying’ is the beginning energy of ‘doing!'”
Yoda: “Not so, grasshopper. To ‘try’ entertains the idea that to fail one might, and a weakness and a loss of power and determination for a Jedi that is.”
Me: “I disagree, Master. I think that ‘to try’ can also entertain the idea of success. And may I remind you, we’re not all Jedi… we’re just ordinary men with mostly ordinary abilities.”
Yoda: “Wrong again, young one. You are all Jedi, but know it you don’t. A state of mind it is, with right and sincerity of purpose as its power. ’Try’ always fails, for letting in the possibility of failure it does.”
Me: “No, no, no, Yoda. I can’t agree with that at all. I think that ‘try’ is the beginning of an activity that has at least an equal chance of success.
Yoda: “Do or not do, there is no try.”
Me: “Yoda, goddamnit, I think you’re stuck on that saying. It’s just not that cut and dried. An attempt to do something cannot insure its success. It just can’t. Hell, I’m not even sure you really believe it…”
Yoda: “Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.”
Me: “Some of your platitudes are simply too black and white. For one thing, I’ve heard it said that one can lean into the power of ‘yes.’ Could you at least agree with that?”
Yoda: “Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.”
Me: Sigh. “You know, Yoda, as much respect as I have had for you, I’m beginning to think that you have nothing more than a bunch of tiny, strange beliefs stuck in that tiny, strange body…”
Yoda: “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.”
Me: “I don’t know. I don’t know if you continue to make good sense, or if you’re just wearing me down with… I don’t know what. But I can’t, and probably never will agree with that damned statement you made in the movie – ‘Do or don’t do. There is no try.’ Nope. Can’t do it.”
Yoda: “You will know the good from the bad when you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”
Me: “Okay, Yoda, Calm, peaceful, passive. That I can do. Perhaps at some point I will try to change my thinking on this matter.”
Yoda: “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose, grasshopper. A change of mind can bring with it a change of heart. At these things with the mind of a child you must look, for truly wonderful the mind of a child is. And keep me close always, humanoid, for when you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.”
Steve Hulse
