I am here to talk to you about the Dark Side of the Force, and everything it means, to me, to be a Jedi working with it in the real world.
When people ask why they should turn to the Dark Side, there is the obvious reason: Power. There is plenty about that here. Power to act, power to get the things you want, do the things you want to do, make your ideas and plans triumph over other ideas and plans. But before we get to that, there is one first and necessary step to becoming a Dark Jedi:
You must figure out what you want to do. And to do that effectively, you must get your own shit together.
I hear you…. but Satelle, I don't need this self-help bullshit, I'm here to be a Dark Jedi Badass. I came seeking this dark knowledge to wield it in my life.
I will tell you, quite bluntly, that unless you work out what it is you want to spend your time and effort on doing in life, you will end up spending your valuable time and effort doing what other people and other Wills decide for you. You may actually realize it's that way now and resent it. You may reject it, but that is an impotent existence; rejection of the norm without replacing it with your own way is just useless yelling at the void. And, like so many revolutions, your yelling will become the next version of the norm because you didn't define anything revolutionary beyond rejecting what others told you. That is a situation that sets you up to be manipulated by others who actually do have an agenda. If you are at all interested in doing something different and assertive with yourself, you must have something in hand.
Understanding yourself and deciding what you want to do is a process of introspection and creation, but it's right within your head. You are deciding what you want to do with yourself and your life, and by doing so, you throw into sharp relief the external influences simply by having something to compare to. This is you deciding between two options and making conscious decisions between them. But the fresh set of alternatives must come from you. Your Will. Your manifestation of reluctance and frustration with life. To do anything else is to not only be controlled by others, but to be miserable all the while. Put in the effort on fixing up your own house, mental and physical.
Once you know what you want to do and how to do it, we get to the second more interesting step: Gaining Control.
If you put in the time and effort in figuring yourself out, you can much more easily see the differences between Current State and Future State. You will be able to see things that you are already happy with, and those serve as foundational positions of strength to shore up other areas. You will be able to see what needs work and form goals that are suited to you. And better yet, you will have a path that you can believe in, instead of something born from other people's motives, expectations, and codes.
That last point cannot be stressed enough. For those of you who were trying to be something in life that you weren't and realized it later, that is why I feel so strongly about gaining a foundation before leaping forward. The mind is very complex. If you try to be that Dark Jedi Badass by simply plastering the image over who you are, in the hope that it "sticks", the cognitive dissonance will catch up with you with one hell of a hangover, or even… not, since once you've invested in the mistake for a while, it become harder to course correct. It's kind of like racking up a hundred thousand dollars of student debt on a degree in something you weren't actually interested in; don't you wish you would have realized that closer to the start? Don't you wish you had told people you didn't want to do what they expected you to do? Don't you wish you had made your own choices?
Yes. Yes.
The final stage of being a Dark Jedi in the real world is action on those plans and beyond: Doing It. You took aim, you drew back the arrow, and now you're going to hit the target. You actually know what the targets are now, and you have the power and the right arrows to be a warrior. You know technique and timing, and a slew of other small skills that combine to help hit that target. And you knew you had a weak arm and worked on it, so now you can hit targets for days on end. Any activity driven thus, born out of awareness and control, has a much higher chance of succeeding. And, I dare say, in the end, you will be happier doing what you want to do.
So that's it, that is the deceptively simple formula for Dark Jedi in my Dynasty. It is a formula I have lived, myself, and found to be immeasurably valuable. I recognize that in the course of each of our journeys along this Dark path, what we each want to apply ourselves to will differ. Our lives will differ. We are different people. We will decide we want different things out of the world, and do different things with our power. We may be in opposition with what we decide to do with our power, and well…. I have never claimed that this is a conflict-free path. It is also a difficult path, if taken seriously. But at the core, the practice of gaining power and living powerful lives will be the same, and I am glad to help you as I can.