William Fu says:

It felt exactly just like the time when I was a kid and wanted to join the little league of soccer, but my mom told me to go on and study instead…she will not allow me to venture into that unknown world of youthful competition for sports. Instead she wanted me to study for something which until now, I realized, it was something I can just learn without going to school. This is just an example from my own life…
Anyways, I’m glad you shared that scene with us Chris, because it certainly does reflect what’s been happening over and over again, constantly in this world, where children or young people who chose to do something that they really want to try it out, but you’ve got these parents (or authoritative figures) that tells you to stop daydreaming, cause it won’t come true anyways, and just follow your everyday routines doing chores around the house, and to become part of the working cycle of society.
The part where Luke suddenly backs off, and sort of rejects his calling is when he thought and told Obi-Wan Kenobi that he’s got some things to do, and he’s worried about the harvest. We could tell, actually Luke really wanted to get out there because he said he could take Obi-Wan to a certain point, but he insisted not to go, which leads to the ultimate push where his home’s been ravaged by the Empire and making him to go with Obi-Wan.
It’s pretty powerful, because we see this everyday, for everybody who has encountered several occasions when they’ve been put down or disbelieved by other people about their own dreams or what they want to do.
In a way, society itself has already established its own protective barrier or ideologies for people to feel that their secure because of having a job, having a life, where of course spending their whole life paying bills to a house which it doesn’t really own by them, but the government. It’s almost just like the Matrix, where people think their free, but in reality we’re only slaves in bondage to a system.
Therefore, if we look at some of the older generations in different cultures, for example the Chinese, they would have the notion that new generations should always take up the cup from the old and carry it along with them further on. There’s a must for boys to carry on the task of the father for sure…in fact this is what I am dealing with now…so even though I love movies and screenwriting, but they could never understand what it is. You could say they are a different world apart from me, because I can’t run their business. There’s always a lack of energy for me when it comes to running machines and just doing the same things, meeting the same customers everyday. But when it comes to writing, I love to wonder and just be by myself, meet who ever on the streets that I can connect with and just talk.
This is exactly what Luke might have been experiencing..and that is the struggle between his desire to get out of that place, to make his dream come true versus the requirements put upon him by his Uncle Owen, which are the burdens in this “realistic” society.
What’s really interesting about this is that some people may say, how foolish with all this force stuff?, but some would also encourage Luke to do it, since I think subconsciously, we are tired of the ways how the society makes us operate. However, it could be dangerous also just like the story of Daedalus and Icarus. The danger to take on the unknown, which of course is just like the flight of Icarus between the Sun above and the Sea below. I think this kind of danger could also be too overwhelming or fearful for some of us to even think about, and that is why we constantly deny the possibilities for us to follow whats really deep down inside our hearts.
Great Article Chris!