I had gone through difficult times in my teenage years. After growing up Catholic, and taking the idea of heaven and hell quite literally, I had developed some sort of inferiority complex. I tended to draw a stark difference between what I thought were "mundane" and "spiritual" things, thus, I opted out of "living" a regular teenage life, and grew increasingly isolated, pessimistic, feeling less than everyone, and in general, miserable.
I stumbled upon the New Age movement and many tenets of Wicca made sense to me, so I began to pursue learning more about the philosophy. That opened a door to reading about more religions, and learning that what I had grown up to believe to be true was just one of many ways of looking at things.
This newfound freedom was relieving, but also left me feeling... purposeless, with no structure.
One day, I watched the old SW Trilogy, and "BOOM" it hit me: I want to be a Jedi.
I was a member and a Knight at Jediism.org at about the same time Camile David was. When that site went down, and an era of ezboard sites popped up, I lurked and participated at some of those as well. I had a short presence at Sithism.org and at the Sanctuary as well, until I went "dark" (started exploring parts of my personality I previously had held taboo).
I came back to Jediism when I became a father, in 2010. Since then, I participate a bit, but oftentimes lurk.
The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
- William Arthur Ward
