Happy Star Wars Day!
Wait. You say you don't celebrate Star Wars Day? You say you didn't even know it's Star Wars Day today?
What are you—normal??
8-)
For a subset of us—a subset that's small but probably bigger than you'd believe—today is Star Wars Day. Why, you ask? Well, I answer, today's May 4th. And what's the greeting one Jedi gives to another? “May the Force be with you”. “May the Force”...May the 4th? Get it?
Okay, I need help. But I'm not the only one. There are people out there—like I said, probably a lot more than you'd think—who will celebrate the day with all the gusto they can muster, dressing in costume, watching as many of the films as they can in a 24 hour period, or standing on the street corner, shouting out to the galaxy just how evil the Empire really is.
And you know what? There's nothing at all wrong with that.
Yesterday I had touched upon just how powerful a single piece of pop culture can be, but unlike Gordon Lightfoot's “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” the “Star Wars” universe has forty-plus years of growth behind it. Three generations now have soaked up the worlds and the characters that make up that universe, and are still eagerly awaiting the next chapters in the ever-growing saga. With that background it's probably no surprise that people celebrate today.
Maybe what's more surprising is that more people don't.
So if you come a cross someone today who says “Happy Star Wars Day” or “May the Force be with you”, don't assume they're a little off-kilter. Nope; they're just among the three generations (and counting) whose lives have been touched by a series of movies, books, and games.
And considering some of the, well, incredibly bizarre (if not outright dangerous) ideas that get passed around the world these days, is there really anything wrong with celebrating a little bit of our shared pop culture and its history?
May the Force be with you!
(ps—oh, just because you can never hear this piece of music too much...)
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