...when you're fixing things.

A little while ago, I had a big fight with my 17-year-old son. He has a crappy attitude. I started ragging on him. Typical mom-son stuff, but it upset me. Shortly thereafter, I found myself scrubbing my kitchen sink, and when it sparkled, I moved onto playing with the technical side of my son's high school marching band's website (something I'm responsible for).

Life seems so much easier when you're fixing things...or cleaning things. I'm sure I'm not alone in this mindset. How often do you find yourself retreating to some activity that requires a finite amount of thinking when your heart and your head hurt and can't be easily fixed? The heart has no instruction or care manual, but most things do.

When Ani tells Padme that life seems so much easier when you're fixing things, I'm fairly certain that he meant it on two levels...or at least we, the audience, are meant to take it that way. There's the obvious, the way I meant it when I pulled out the SOS pads...Anakin knew how to fix the various gadgets in Watto's junk shop, but it was impossible to "fix" his mother.

On a deeper, more subtle level, though, perhaps Anakin meant this: while being a slave was a heart-wrenching and difficult thing to do, it's sometimes easier having people telling you what to do than it is to be the one who does the "doing." It's sometimes easier to follow than to lead. Life is a lot easier when there's an instruction manual and you're not responsible for writing it.

Perhaps at that moment, before he flew into his hate-filled rage about wanting the power to save his mother, Anakin just wished he didn't have to think about any of it...saving the galaxy or his mother or any of the responsibilities of a Jedi. Anakin, in that moment, just wanted to be Ani.