Movies & TV

To tie this in to real life; I'm a really, really big man. Like really big. I'm in the top 1% of human height and weight. There are over Eight billion people on the planet that are smaller than I am, including almost all women.

That gives me a lot of power. People ascribe authority to height and size. They ascribe the capacity for violence. People are intimidated by tall men, they're afraid of them. I can use that power. I do, often. But i have to be extremely careful about when I use it, and how. I could intimidate someone to get what I want. I can do that, and I do.

But if I do that? They'll never trust me again. They'll always know, at some level, that I threatened them. That any fears they had about me are real. Once that trust is gone it can never be mended. I can shove people, hit them, pick them up, yell at them, loom over them, but doing so always comes at a cost. I only have to fuck up one time in front of a woman I care about and she will never be able to trust me again.

And I have to be mindful that I don't do it by accident. I have to manage how I express my emotions. If I'm feeling great anger I need to be cautious about how I express it because I'm a threat. It's not enough to passively recognize that I can loom over people, that I can threaten people, I have to actively avoid doing it. I maintain space when addressing people I don't know. I give women on the street wide berth. I frequently sit down so people can engage with me without the enormous height difference. I make a lot of jokes. It's a process of deliberate awareness.

That's my real-world example of the Force. If you have power you have to be careful and responsible about how you use it. Being tall isn't the same as dodging lasers or being able to jump thirty feet, but it is a real-world example of a power that is very easy to misuse, and very easy to come to rely on.