Alexandersmap

    Tag: J.R.R. Tolkien

    • Raising Our Voice of Reason

      Our little lives get complicated
      It’s a simple thing
      Simple as a flower
      And that’s a complicated thing
      — Love and Rockets, No New Tale to Tell

      Wrestling with what comes next with the generation ahead of mine is complicated. Offering guidance to the young adults we raised when they have good heads on their own shoulders is also complicated. We ought to let people find their own way as much as we can, while remembering that we’re in their life for a reason. Sometimes we have something to offer in such moments.

      The world is very complicated right now. Sometimes it seems like our only purpose is to be a voice of reason in a maddeningly confused time. It seems some people are outraged by the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. I’m more outraged by children dying on a soccer pitch in the Golan Heights for no reason but that they were born in a place and time that made them expendable to someone with the means and inclination to wipe their lives away. I’m more outraged that we’re pissing away time focusing on petty instead of looking at the bigger issues this planet is facing right now. And yes, I’m more outraged that people are outraged by things they’re told to be outraged about instead of following their own moral compass.

      “Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
      Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
      ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

      I don’t particularly want to make this blog political, and choose to focus on finding common ground instead. I feel the world needs more people pointing out the things that link us together instead of people pulling us apart, and so I use my keyboard accordingly. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out when we go astray. The human race is staggeringly complicated and stupefyingly simple all at once. Art is finding the beauty in the madness and helping others see what was right in front of them all along.

      Our job, should we choose to embrace it, is to raise our voice and bring reason to the conversation. The world doesn’t need another person screaming, and it doesn’t need another person who chooses to stay silent, it needs thoughtful consideration about what comes next and a measured response. It needs people who rise up and do what’s right when it feels like rising up will get you knocked down. This is our time, after all. So what will we do with reason when it asks for a voice?

    • Yet Another Mess to Clean Up

      “It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather have stayed there in peace.”
      ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

      What do we make of war? What do we make of people who don’t interpret it as the horrible failure of diplomacy that it is? As you get a bit older you recognize that most people are winging it, no matter what their title. A few people push harder to get their way than the rest of us. And a rare few rise to the top through burning singular focus and a bag of tricks. We see people we’d never want to associate with in real life rising to powerful positions in business and politics, and we’re left to deal with the consequences. History taught us this in the two World Wars, didn’t it? How quickly we forget when those who fought those wars pass on.

      J.R.R. Tolkien fought in World War One and lived through World War Two. The Lord of the Rings is derived from his experience in war. It’s a book worth investing the time in, for it brings us into a world we can’t imagine living in for the weakness of character and selfish power grabs of those in leadership positions and the unrelenting misery for those who do the dirty work. The books should be required reading. Add it to your list of banned books to get through before the hordes of fascists begin burning the next pile.

      The tragic events unfolding in Ukraine were highly predictable and likely avoidable. But it all started much sooner than 2022. In a way, there was a ticking time bomb released since Boris Yeltsin expanded the powers of the Russian Presidency, and handed over the reigns to Vladimir Putin in 1999. It surely accelerated the moment Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for the American Presidency, shifting the party of Ronald Reagan to whatever it’s become since then. If you want a close look at long view power grabbing, look no farther than Putin. Over 23 years he’s worked to eliminate or mitigate the checks and balances meant to curb the power of an autocrat, both domestically and abroad, and here we are.

      I joked when Trump was elected that I hoped the world wouldn’t crumble in on itself with him at the helm. It wasn’t worse than I expected, but it’s on pace to be. The only way to fight an autocrat with a long view is to swing the view of the people against them. There’s darkness in the world that can only be eliminated by putting a spotlight on it. And just as we saw in every other tragic example in history, we are the ones who have to clean up the mess.