Google Mars is a fascinating program. David Martines ran across a structure on the surface of Mars that makes no sense, yet it’s there. Did NASA build it? Did China build it? What about the Soviet Union? If not them, then perhaps another civilization all together, one that does not call Earth its home.

There are a number of unexplained phenomena that defy conventional explanation. Because some college professor with government grant money hasn’t yet discovered them, does not mean they don’t exist. In my opinion, I have seen human culture actually revert backward in this last century because of the stigmas of progressivism, so human invention is most often found best in science fiction and adventure films and books. Those are the realms the mind can comfortably explore possibilities beyond current human understanding.

I personally believe there are a number of archeological features on Mars that must be studied and when we go there, we’ll find out. I also believe that because of religious prejudice there are many eyes that have seen the same images that Mr. Martines has seen, but their belief system will not allow them to see truly what is there. It happens here on earth. We can’t even figure out if human’s have an impact on our own planet, or if the whole green movement is actually a socialist conspiracy, and this is happening on our home planet, let alone some plant next to us in the solar system, or even in another solar system, galaxy, or god forbid, a whole other universe.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in all the drama of all the important issues imposed upon us in these perilous times we are living in. But………………………………….all work and no play does not make an efficient human being. It is very, very good to take a minute and play from time to time.

For me, I have made my love of pirates well-known and I have wrote extensively about them here. But I’ve also wrote about Star Wars a lot also for virtually the same reasons. In such fiction there is a passionate love for freedom and an extreme dislike for tyranny. Tyranny to quote my teacher Joseph Campbell is all the “thou shalt not’s” in our life. It is in the realm of myth to become a dragon slayer to the “thou shalt not’s” and kill them boldly so that ideas may live and thrive without fear. Tyranny is anything that imposes itself on the free mind with intent to control, manipulate or engineer movement that is not authentic to an individual.

Star Wars is a wonderful invention of George Lucas that is a vacation for the mind. It doesn’t even take place in this in this Galaxy. So it is appropriate on the heels of this discovery by Mr. Martines, that George Lucas was in Florida to open the new ride, Star Tours 2, which closed last fall much to my displeasure. But I have been very eager to see the reopening which has just occurred over the last couple of weeks at Disney Hollywood Studios while news broke about the Mars discovery.

Among all the people on this planet, the hope I have for the human race comes from people like this. I go to events like this from time to time, and I adore the passion that is present. Every time Star Wars does something new, whether it’s a new book, video game, film, TV show, Fan Event, or a new ride like Star Tours, politics, prejudices, age stereotypes and gender affiliations are no longer a concern.

It is not an accident that people of all ages from all places love Star Wars. Star Wars is about all the purest notions present in the minds of humanity.

I’ve also talked a lot about this guy, George Lucas. Lucas is the creator of Star Wars, and has been on the forefront of most of the great innovations over the last 30 years. Our world is far better because of him. When Lucas says that his company, Lucasfilm started by a rebel from Modesto California and Disney, created by a guy that dropped out of high school are two of the most innovative companies of their kind in the world, he’s right, when those two companies get together, magic happens.

Whenever there is a big Star Wars event, such as this latest one at Hollywood Studios fans from all over the country show up in costume to celebrate unbridled creativity and the spirit of adventure.

As for the ride itself, here is a sneak peek at the actual ride itself.

During the opening ceremony officially commissioning the ride, George Lucas and Bob Iger join onstage to launch the ride. It was a grand spectacle worthy of the very best that the human imagination can produce.

Without question there are those out there that look at such events with bewilderment. I know such people and I feel sorry for them, because the magic of youth has left them. When I was young, I collected Star Wars toys, and I played with them even into my teens. Many of the young people growing up with me started to make fun of that kind of activity as they became interested in members of the opposite sex.

As a boy I was without question the fastest kid in my entire school. Nobody could run faster than me, in dodge ball I was always the last kid standing and I was one of the strongest. I won the pull-up contest in the winter Olympics event in the fifth grade; in fact I won the school equivalent of a gold medal. I was always really good at sports, all sports especially basketball and hockey, so of course a very pretty, very popular girl wanted to “go steady” with me, in the fifth grade. Now to the adults in my life, it looked as though I was headed in the right direction, cute girlfriend, the gym teacher was telling my parents that scholarships were in my future from any school of my choice because my physical abilities were unusually proficient, and aside from being very combative with my teachers, my future looked bright, except for that one small problem, I spent hours and hours and hours in the basement of my home playing Star Wars with my brother. My family couldn’t afford all the toys that Kenner was producing, so my brother and I built our own, all inspired from the Star Wars galaxy.

A very pretty girl who rode my bus was persistently letting me know she was interested in me. Under pressure from all the other “popular” girls that rode my school bus, and the boys that would soon become the “jocks” in later years, I told the little girl I’d go steady with her. Such a girl promised to be very adventurous. It was well-known that she would probably take off her clothes for me and let me do pretty much whatever I wanted, because she had said so to her girl friends intending me to find out. So I said yes.

At home that night I was doing the usual thing, eating my dinner as fast as possible so I could go downstairs and play Star Wars. During dinner that girl called me.

“Hello,” I said to her as my mom handed me the phone. My parents looked proudly at one another.

“Hey sweetie, what are you doing? I heard you said you’d go steady with me?” the little girl said.

I was looking at the clock. It was about 6:15 PM and I wanted to build a spaceship with some shoe boxes my mom had left in my room. I didn’t want to hang on the phone with some stupid girl. “Auh, yes.”

“So, can you get your mom to bring you over?”

“Tonight? To your house?” I said looking at my mom. I was thinking of the possibilities. This girl was one of those girls back then that had both parents with full occuapations so she was home by herself most of the time. In fact, during the summer, in her neighborhood most of the kids were home by themselves all summer because their parents were always working or too tired to pay attention to what the kids were doing.

“Yes silly, to my house. My mom is going to be gone till 9 and my dad is on a business trip. I’m here by myself and I want you to come over.”

I looked at my mom, my dad, and my brother who was ready to go downstairs and play Star Wars. “What are we going to do?”

The girl giggled on the other end of the phone. “We’ll think of something.”

I knew what that meant. This little girl had let quite a few of the boys she had “gone steady” with, see her naked, so that was what the girl had in mind. She figured that would seal the deal with me.

My life flashed before me. I realized that if I went to that girl’s house once, she’d want to do it again, and again. She’d also want to talk on the phone all the time like a lot of the girls from that time were doing. I did not want to spend my time talking to some stupid girl on the phone. I just wanted to see her naked, but not to get wrapped up in wasting my time. My heart’s desire was to go into the basement and play Star Wars.

“I don’t think I want to go out with you,” I said to the girl.

“What?”

“It’s a school night, and I’m busy.”

The girl started crying. My dad’s face dropped and my brother went downstairs knowing I was going to be off the phone soon. He was younger than me, in kindergarten at the time, so wanting to see a girl naked wasn’t even a relevant thought.

“Nobody has ever broke-up with me before. We’ve only been going out for a couple of hours. Is it because I’m ugly? I’ll do anything you want.”

“It’s not because you’re ugly. It’s just that I……..I’m busy.”

The girl hung up, I went downstairs and played Star Wars. The next day at school, all the girls’ friends were angry at me for breaking up with their friend. One girl who knew me very well because her brother played with my brother and I said, “You broke up with her so you could play that stupid, gay, little Star Wars thing you guys do. Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said honestly.

“I thought so. Well, I’m going to tell her why.”

She did, and from that day on, that girl and all her popular friends shut the door to me out of that rejection. She never really got over it, until we were seniors in high school and my friend and I had a ghastly reputation for excessive speeding, violent fights and other aggressive behavior, and were getting ready to leave school for the day when she came running across the parking lot to stop me. She asked me for a ride home from school.

I looked at the girl; she looked old at only 17. She had been having sex for many years, and virtually every popular boy in school had either seen her naked, or had sex with her in some form or another. She figured because of my reputation I’d want to spend time with her. I think she really needed a ride home, but she was looking for a chance I think. I instantly felt bad for her. She had been very attractive just a couple of years before, but now her skin was blotchy from where she went to the tanning bed too much. She actually had wrinkles around her eyes. Looking at her I couldn’t help but think she reminded me of a sperm suppository that had semen oozing out of the pores of her body.

“No, I can’t.”

I was surprised that her eyes actually welled up with tears. “Why, are you going to go and play Star Wars again?”

I looked at her to assess her pain. It was obvious she was trying to go back in time to fix something in her life, and I felt compelled to help her. But not compelled to stop doing what my friend and I were about to do.

“Sorry, but we’re getting ready to catch Rambo II. The movie starts in 45 minutes.”

I started up my car and skidded out of the school parking lot as was usual. That was the last time I ever saw or spoke to that girl.

The people who grew up successful and happy had little things like Star Wars in their life to help them through tough times. People like that girl, that filled the empty moments in her life with the penis of a young boy, in an attempt to steer that boy where she wanted ended up sick, diseased and terribly broken before they even hit 20 years old.

Mythology like Star Wars touches the mind beyond the animal hungers for sex, food, or the desire for acceptance, which is the first step toward tyranny. This is why I would rather shake hands with a Star Wars fan than any politician, or power player. The people who love Star Wars are creating, if only in their minds. They are creating costumes, they are collecting items, they are reading books and this makes them valuable people.

It is the child in all of us that must be kept alive, and not destroyed in some mindless pursuit of some perceived economic, or social value. The truth of mankind can be found in events like Star Tours.

Because there are many, many more discoveries that must be made for the human race to advance forward, we are a long way from completing the human adventure. So complacency of thought in the mundane realm of food and sex is not enough. When the entire world has the tools of academia at their disposal, it still takes the wondering adventurer, the outcast, the geek, to see what was always there.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com