Truly Wonderful The Mind Of A Child Is
The magical humility of children as shown in Star Wars: Episode I
I like to read Axios every day before getting started with my work. They tend to have some thought-provoking roundups on major stories and ideas not getting enough mainstream play. One such article was their review of the world through children's eyes. It reminded me of how imaginative I once was. I’m not devoid of imagination at this present moment, but I remember very clearly when every stick I found on the ground became a sword, gun, or wand. I remember so clearly when I was in Boy Scouts, how on backpacking trips I would spend the entire hike roleplaying World War II and pretending that my Troop was a paratrooper division dropped behind German lines in 1944. I’d spend hours of those hikes playing a game all by myself that no one around me could see. Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.
Axios notes how, “Kids are uniquely good at living in the present, being curious, and making the most of their surroundings — all skills that can help us solve problems and find happiness even as adults.”
The New York Times reports on this also, saying of toddlers how, “They're constantly on the move (Yes, there’s an Obi-Wan quote for this). 2-year-olds are active for about five hours a day because they never pass up an opportunity to move. They're not afraid of dumb questions. One of the most effective ways to deepen connections with friends, colleagues, and relatives is to ask them questions. But most of us don't ask enough.”
One of my greatest regrets in life thus far is the questions I didn’t ask of my grandparents while they were around. I had a few for them, no doubt. But I have so many more now. I wish I could go back in time and try again.
In case you missed it we have a new video up on YouTube about the fall of Anakin Skywalker and the Stoicism of Qui-Gon Jinn modeled in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Which, BTW, did you know Episode I is re-releasing in movie theaters this May? I already bought tickets.
And that’s not all for today’s email chock full of references to Star Wars: Episode I. There’s more.
Since we’re on the theme of children and their natural propensity toward Humility, I thought why not share an essay of mine on this very subject? In Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the peaceful planet of Naboo is invaded by the corporatist Trade Federation. This is not made clear on screen, but the queen of Naboo, Padme Amidala, is merely 14 years old. She is a kid. Turns out, this is the norm for Naboo. They do not have a hereditary monarchy, no. They elect kids as rulers. THEY CHOOSE IT. Why?!
In this essay, an excerpt from my book, How The Force Can Fix The World…which you should buy and read, I’ll explain.
Padme was just 14 years old at the time of the Trade Federation’s unprovoked invasion of the peaceful and opulent world of Naboo, a mature democratic society with a peculiar quirk in its system. As if fourteen were not young enough, apparently Padme wasn’t even the youngest queen to sit atop the throne. While we don’t know which of her predecessors Padme was referencing as having been even younger, we do know one of her successors, Queen Apailana (seen only at Padme’s funeral in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) is merely 12 years old. So this quick exchange between Padme and Anakin raises a few legitimate questions about the judgment of the good people of Naboo.
Why would any society use the legitimizing power of democratic elections to give executive power to children? We’re all somewhat familiar with historical examples of child monarchs anointed as heads of state at a young age, thanks to what’s known as hereditary monarchies.
For example, King Tut became a pharaoh of Egypt at just age 9. Meanwhile, Queen Isabella II of Spain was named queen at just three-years-old, only to take the throne officially at age 13 after a series of civil wars were fought in a failed attempt to prevent a woman from leading the country. Mary Queen of Scots was merely a toddler when she became queen of Scotland and would go on to challenge Queen Elizabeth I for the English crown, unsuccessfully. There was King Alfonso XIII, age 16 upon taking the throne of Spain in 1902. He would lead Spain through the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and World War I.
The list of real-world child monarchs really does go on and on.
It’s truly a marvel of history and somewhat sobering that in all of human existence only recently has it become an oddity to enshrine children with actionable political power. I love my daughter, and she possesses a great deal of intuition and intellectual curiosity for a 5th grader, but I wouldn’t voluntarily opt to run her as a candidate for higher office. She lacks wisdom and experience for such a role, and she hasn’t been tested yet with even the simple choice of choosing an elective in high school or a college to attend. There’s little reason for me to believe my child is ready to make decisions of life and death in the event a droid army from space invades our little Washington, D.C. suburb.
Padme, at the age of fourteen, did have to make such decisions of consequence.
Following the invasion of her planet, the young queen had to decide whether or not to flee Naboo in pursuit of a political intervention by the Galactic Republic. While she was off-world, Padme received word from a close advisor, Governor Sio Bibble, that the death toll within Federation-occupied areas of Naboo was “catastrophic.” Having already made a desperate plea to the Republic on the floor of the Senate, with no signs of an intervention being forthcoming, Padme was faced with the decision to return to Naboo and fight the Trade Federation head-on. It was a defining moment for the queen, who with all of her high-minded ideals about democracy and the Republic of which Naboo was a part, had to face an ugly truth. She abandoned the political pursuit of an intervention and got to work on forging a new military alliance to save her people.
Recognizing the Republic’s incapacity to come to their aid was not her crowning achievement during the crisis on Naboo. Padme’s moment of defining leadership and political vision came when she returned to the planet’s surface and realized that the Naboo had a more existential problem to solve if the Trade Federation would ever be driven away by force. Naboo, for all its beauty and elegance, was a world divided.
Say what you will about Jar Jar Binks and the fact that he’s a tad annoying, but he is far from unimportant in the grand scheme of the Star Wars story. Risking everything, Padme asked the ever popular Binks to take her to the leader of the Gungans, Boss Rugor Nass. When they eventually find them, the Gungans are hiding in the woods. Their cities captured and laid to waste by droids. Padme had a choice to make. She could size up the Gungans’ tenuous situation in hiding to try and dictate to them how an alliance with her would be in their best interests, or she could do the opposite — a somewhat radical proposition for a young ruler aiming to show strength in a crisis.
The radicalism of bending a knee
Padme took the radical approach, which was to display total humility in the eyes of a distrustful and bitter Boss Nass. Leading with the acknowledgement of the equal greatness of their cultures, Padme took a knee before Nass and said “I ask you to help us, no I beg you to help us. We are your humble servants. Our fate is in your hands.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
What Queen Padme Amidala did there was incredibly bold, so much so that Boss Nass laughed at the very sight of it while the Naboo remained knelt before him in hopes for an alliance.
Nass’s response stunned bystanders who already appeared bewildered by Padme’s approach to diplomacy. He said to Queen Amidala in the glorious dialect of the Gungan people, “Yousa no tinken yousa greater den da Gungans? Mesa like dis. Maybe wesa... bein' friends.”
Translated for those of you who are not not up to speed on Gunganese, that would mean, “You don’t think you’re greater than the Gungans? I like this. Maybe we can be friends.” If you’re not familiar with the geopolitics of the planet of Naboo, here’s a crash course.
The planet of Naboo featured two primary inhabitants. Living underwater in massive technologically advanced cities were the amphibious people known as the Gungans. They’re tall, lean, and muscular creatures with thick rubbery skin and faces that blend the likeness of catfish with ducks.
With Jar Jar Binks as the leading representative of the Gungan people to Star Wars fans, you might not know that Gungans are considered a warrior race. They didn’t revel in violence. The Gungans treasured peace and non-aggression among their principles. Their traditions mirror what you might see in some of the indigenous tribes of our own world. The Gungan way, whether it was war or building cities, was to attempt a certain sympatico with the natural world. You can see it on display throughout Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in the blue bubble-like technologies of the Gungans. Their underwater cities, defensive shields on-land, and grenades are all derived from natural resources within Naboo’s planetary crust.
Take a wild guess as to who disrupted the Gungans' otherwise peaceful and eco-friendly lifestyle. You can have a hint — in the words of Boss Nass, “Dey think dey so smarty, dey think dey brains so big….." That’s right! Those dreaded hipster colonists, the Naboo. As Star Wars lore has explained it, the Naboo people first appeared on the planet fleeing war and strife off-world. When they settled above ground, hostilities quickly arose — and then boiled over.
It’s not clear what started the feud between the Naboo and the Gungans, but it doesn’t take an intergalactic Sherlock Holmes to look at the picture George Lucas painted of Naboo and surmise what happened. At some point before the Star Wars films take place, the Gungans were put upon by these human refugees and in the end were driven under the waters of Naboo to live in relative isolation. The two great civilizations, while deeply resentful of one another, lived apart in peace
So I ask you again….why would the Naboo elect children as their leaders?
Well, the Naboo understand that leadership and listening are one in the same. The homeworld of Padme Amidala has an interesting political system, to say the least. The Naboo elect a monarch who serves two years at a time, with a maximum of two terms. These individuals are usually exceptionally young, female, and come from elite families. Young talent for civil service are groomed within Naboo’s Royal Academy of Government, again referenced in passing by Padme in Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
These young leaders are surrounded by a cohort of more seasoned administrators known as the Royal Advisory Council, and are instilled with authority over domestic affairs while galactic politics falls to Naboo’s senators. Those senators that represent the planet within the Galactic Republic are appointed by the monarch, making them more akin to the United Nations ambassadors of our own world.
The Naboo clearly place a high value on the intuitions of their young people, while maintaining a respect for age and experience that is reflected in the Advisory Council. When I think of children at their best, they are champions of curiosity, adaptability, openness and above all, humility.
Put your listening ears on
For instance, there’s a reason kids are superior when it comes to learning new languages early in their life. Children learn unconsciously, as if their default setting is to absorb and redeploy information. Adults on the other hand, because they have so much more to manage in their minds (bills, schedules, work, raising kids) have to consciously shift into a state of mind for learning. According to UCLA neurology professor Dr. Paul Thompson, children have a particularly powerful asset in the deep motor area of the brain which governs these unconscious actions. Before age 11, the centers in the brain responsible for language are growing rapidly, and picking up a new language is easier. It’s a subtle difference, but most adults know that “going along to get along” is just a way of life at a certain age.
There’s also the matter of inhibition. There is such a thing as a shy child, but for the most part, kids don’t begin their life with stage fright. Children don’t lose sleep over mispronouncing a word or attempting to explain something while getting tongue-tied along the way. Put simply, self-consciousness is learned later in life. Related to this cocktail of negativity, learning a second language later in life is far more fraught with anxiety. Once you speak your native language fluently, there’s a mental hurdle most have to clear to learn a new language. What’s in it for me? Will this take time away from other activities I enjoy? What will my friends think of me learning this? Everything ranging from practical concerns over time to more societal constraints like the stigma around bilingual speakers, less likely to concern the average child.
Extrapolate that to how a child might engage in politics. Right off the bat you’d have someone who approaches governance with curiosity and a natural interest in problem solving. They would have no assumptions about their greatness or mastery of the universe. There’s no shortage of moving parts in politics, which is presumably where a Royal Advisory Council comes into play for a young monarch on Naboo. The trick is how you interpret the incoming information shared by your advisors.
My challenge to you is the same as it would be to a monarch like Padme: remember and cherish the number one favorite word of children. That word is “why?”
Children ask “why?” And they do it a lot. Without shame or apprehension, they ask for more information at every turn. It can be frustrating at times to be on the receiving end of that question, but you miss it when it’s gone. People tend to stop asking questions as they get older, either to minimize conflict or lay low at school or the workplace, or they’ve developed some certainty — about who they are, what they know, and what they can do.
Those two approaches manifest themselves in the ethos of, “fake it to make it” a somewhat learned behavior that comes from a place of social pressure, real or perceived, to present yourself as competent. Then there’s “hubris,” meaning to have excessive pride or self-confidence. Both of these are exactly what Naboo is seeking to weed out of its political talent pool. They want leaders who will question, seek knowledge, admit when they’re wrong, and adapt to do better. Can you think of any world leaders, perhaps of a democratic nation, whose entire ethos is built around intense ego and an air of infallibility?
That’s it for Geeky Stoics today! Be good to yourself and others as head into Easter weekend, and we’ll see you in your inbox again soon.
-Stephen Kent