So as I explained in the welcome post, I am bidding goodbye to Programmer’s Ranch and starting something afresh with Gigi Labs. Programmer’s Ranch was probably my most successful website so far, and it is a little sad to let it go after slightly less than 18 months.

In life we come across many sad moments, and the demise of a blog is certainly among the least significant of these.  Whether we’re talking about a colleague leaving to pursue a new venture, or a friend who is emigrating, or someone close who just passed away, it is never easy to say goodbye.

There’s a nice conversation from Star Wars which I think contains a few nuggets of wisdom that apply in such cases. Taken from this question, here it goes:

Yoda: “Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin! The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side.”

Anakin: “I won’t let my visions come true, Master Yoda.”

Yoda: “Rejoice for those around us who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed, that is.”

Anakin: “What must I do, Master Yoda?”

Yoda: “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

This advice might sound a little bit brutal, but I think it depends very much on the interpretation. For me, detachment from the things and people that were an important part of our lives does not mean that we don’t care about them. It merely means that we accept that nothing lasts forever. It is for this reason that we make the most of the time we have available with them. And when the time comes to part ways, and for all the time thereafter, we remember and appreciate the part they played in our lives, and the part we played in theirs. Because each one of us has developed into who we are as a result of the interactions we had with others, much like invisible threads.

This also ties in with Buddhist teachings on attachment and liberation:

“The Buddha saw that people’s ignorance of the nature of change was the cause of suffering. We desire to hold on to what we value, and we suffer when life’s inevitable process of change separates us from those things. Liberation from suffering comes, he taught, when we are able to sever our attachments to the transient things of this world.

[…]

“The challenge is not to rid oneself of attachments but, in the words of Nichiren, to become enlightened concerning them. […]

“In their proper perspective–when we can see them clearly and master them rather than being mastered by them–desires and attachments enable us to lead interesting and significant lives.”

So perhaps Yoda will be disappointed to find out that we’ll still miss the people who are no longer a part of our lives. However I think he’d be pretty proud of us if, whenever a friend leaves for greener pastures (whether it means a new job, a new country, or whatever), we know in our heart that we played an important part in his/her personal development, and life in general.