Most guys want to be Han Solo. And why not? The wise cracking space smuggler, lives the life of a bachelor, seeking fortunes and riches, but ends up pursuing a woman (who happens to be a princess) after his conscious gets the better of him. And at the end, he got the girl and helped to save the day. But look at what he had to go through to get there.
And Luke Skywalker? Yeah, some of us wanted to be him too. To be the outcast kid (Read the book, Luke was picked on and bullied) who later finds out he can learn to be a Jedi Knight? The last Jedi, who, it just so happens has to learn to use a lightsaber (which in case you didn't know is basically a laser sword. And if you didn't know that, I don't know where you've been the last 32 years, but welcome to Earth.)
"This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times... before the Empire."
Forgive the Star Wars citations, but being born in 1977, the year A New Hope was released, and growing up with it, it is a part of me, and I'll wager a large part of every guy my age or younger (and some even older). Of course it had some influence. But what does that have to do with chivalry?
Some of us are just scoundrels, like Han, waiting on something to awaken the core parts of us. The scoundrels wander. They seek things they can't seem to find. They befriend big hairy Wookies. They drink excessively. They womanize. They shoot Greedo in the Mos Eisley Cantina. You know. The things that scoundrels do.
Some of us try to be knights. They try to live life by an order or a code. They try not to lie. They try to protect the weak and right the wrongs. They have a sense of duty and what seems right. They learn to use swords, or more modern weapons (guns) for that reason.
You probably think I'm a knight and always have been. That is true of my teenage years, but between then and now, I was more of a Han Solo. A scoundrel who knew right from wrong, but did not follow it. A person who finally realized the importance and need for knightly actions and finally followed through on it.
I know both knights and scoundrels. Some have crossed sides and gone from scoundreldom (Yeah it's a word, I just made it up.) to knighthood. A few seem to go the opposite direction. Most just stay where they are. But that's ok. The world needs Knights and Scoundrels. For neither one of these are truly bad, for neither is evil. A scoundrel might just need a cause to follow.
And what about you? Where you end up in that spectrum? That is for each person to discover on their own. For me, I'd like to be somewhere in the middle.
I'm not trying to be mentor, because I don't think chivalry is something that can be taught except by example. So I ask that if you are following me on this journey, (be you knight, damsel, scoundrel or wench) let me know your thoughts and examples of chivalry that you see in every day life. These don't just have to be the actions of males, for as I've said before, I think women can be chivalrous too.
Until next time,
I am,
Jeffrey R. Daniel
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