One of my most beloved fictional worlds of all time was a small, commonly-forgotten moon in the Star Wars universe called Lok.
As a formerly-addicted video game player, Lok gave me a simulated experience of true desolation. It was a world where I was entirely by myself, with great difficulty in going back. Of all the Star Wars games I've ever played, Lok only appeared in the now-defunct game "Star Wars Galaxies", my first online computer game.
You may ask, with justification, why am I dedicating an article to a small, insignificant world from a shut-down video game. My answer is this: even as a total fantasy, Lok felt like some sort of a "prophecy" to the years to come. Years that seemed too distant to my child-version's brain, and yet, very similar, for some reason.
You see, I never knew the term "philosophy" as a child, and I did not know that I would dedicate my life to philosophy, either. Additionally, I wasn't much of a philosopher either, even without knowing the term. Heck, I despised writing as well at the time.
But this very-specific planet I visited in a video game, every now and then, felt quite different than any of the countless levels from any video game I ever played up to the point. It felt like a voice, even if not a literal voice, telling me something will happen and will turn me into a widely different person than I was at the time. A person whose path, just like in the desolated planet itself, will be that of solitude. That of which I will walk alone, even if others will remain in the background of the uncertain, metaphorical journey.
In the game, Lok was a very unique place. It was the only planet in the game that had one spaceport, which meant that there was only one location where you could spawn in. Even equally-desolated planets had several spaceports, making Lok distinctive in that regard. Additionally, the spaceport was in the top of the planet's map, which meant that if you journeyed too far from it and from any other player-built cities with shuttles you could use to go back to the spaceport, your only option was either an extremely long journey back (the maps were huge in the game), either by foot or a vehicle, or purposely killing yourself using an enemy.
To fill you in, many enemies in the game looked very terrifying and big, and many were rarely seen even in the mainstream games, movies, and perhaps books of the Star Wars franchise. This is especially true when you are a sensitive child that can easily be terrified. The game had a wide array of enemies, too, from human-sized bugs, to murderous ape-looking creatures, to literal gigantic monsters. If your character wasn't high-leveled enough (AKA, strong enough to deal with formidable enemies), you could be killed a lot if you're not careful.
It probably was on Lok where I felt the most desolated in both a video game and in childhood, and yet, the atmosphere of the planet, along with the music, lured me in to explore, further away from the spaceport and the city it was on. Regardless of the harshness, there was something in Lok that I couldn't have described back then, but I knew, that I wanted that thing to be mine; to experience it as far as possible, and further away from anything else. It was on Lok where I discovered the true love of oneself, one's thoughts, and of one's solitude, the one I call Solitarus, or Bdiduta in Hebrew; both nouns I made myself later on when I wrote my first-published book, Hermitericum.
Ever since the shutdown of SWG, I became obsessive to be by myself, to the point of weirding out certain people who are no longer in my life. The thought of being by yourself, with enough silence to be able to hear your own thoughts, and have the freedom to explore as you wish with nothing to bring you down -- it was on Lok when I ultimately realized that if I wanted to ever experience true and long-lasting happiness -- actual happiness, one that brings you to tears -- that life is to be based around the idea of optimal abstinence from the immersion-ruining, sensitive-breaching toxicity of the External World.
Most of the people I've told about the glory I've found in being alone, had no idea what I am talking about, and I can understand them -- being alone is not desired, and even repulsed, by many, because many find or attempt to find their happiness in whatever the External World has to offer, whether they actually attain it or fail at doing so.
I can understand the specific people in my personal life who wanted, want, and will want me to try and enjoy the huge variety of experiences, both positive and negative, the External World has to offer, but whenever I look at the window of my apartment on a cloudy morning and listen to the theme that used to play when your character lands on Lok, all I can do, is to cry with genuine joy; tears of joy of an intensity that I have never found anywhere else in my life, and am uncertain if ever will somewhere else.
And I want to share this rare joy with the world, as another way to leave my legacy, and indeed, the original name of my philosophy, of Rubinshteinic Individualism, was, for this reason, Solitary Individualism.
Whenever you can, try being alone for long; try not by force but by desire, or at least curiosity, and there might be a chance you will understand what I'm talking about, not because I intend to be condescending (far from it, I do not see myself as superior to anyone), but because this feeling, I believe, is rare; a rare feeling from a commonly-despised state to be in.
I don't know if this article will change someone's life, like Lok did to me, but I hope it would at least touch someone's heart, or even less than that, make one wonder if solitude is indeed that bad.
The following video is the theme that used to play when you arrive at Lok's only spaceport. Rest in Peace, Star Wars Galaxies. I would've played you again if there was a legal mean to do so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5jzQW1qmlE
