In the series The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, he uses six things that become the model of his medieval people. The majority of his characters who are good and the race that they are have these attributes built into their society. The two races that exemplify these characteristics are the hobbits and the elves. These six things are: delight in simple things, make light of your troubles, get personal, cultivate good character, cherish and create beauty, and rediscover wonder. These form the basis of the races interaction with one another. These things are difficult to separate though because each one is built on the other one and they are all intertwined. They all affect each other in a certain way which is very neat in my opinion.
The first characteristic is to take delight in the simple things. This means that we should stop and enjoy that sunset or the company of a good friend we have not seen in what seems like forever. The hobbits have this skill mastered. They enjoy smoking a pipe, the outdoors, parties, beer, and most of all talking with old friends and family. They know exactly the right way to do this. We should learn from the hobbits because in today’s world, we are all far to busy trying to be successful and make tons of money that we miss the simple pleasure of the outdoors or the smell of a good homemade meal. Humans, when we die, we never live a fulfilled life completely. This is one of the effects of original sin. Since we know we will not live life to the fullest, we live it as fully as we can. Our human idea of full is off though because we see fullness as wealth and fame when real fullness is stepping back and seeing how we can improve not only our lives, but the lives of the people around us.
The next characteristic is to make light of your troubles. This means that the glass is half full. We never look at the negatives, we focus on the positives. Hobbits seem to have the best capacity for this because of their attitude towards life. They never get down on themselves no matter how grim the situation is looking at the time. A great example of this from our lives is Chris Zandstra. Though he battled cancer all of his life, you would have never thought it because of the way he acted on a daily basis. He was always happy, telling jokes, and inspiring us to realize how much we have to give still. He never got down on himself and he never let anyone else get down on themselves.
Getting personal is another one of the characteristics. This means that our personal involvement with each other has the power to change us. Our friends can change who we are and who we will become in the long run. They bring out the best in us (most of the time). A good example of this from our course is Amanda. At first she was down on herself and was depressed because she thought her life was going badly. Then when other people began to get involved in her life more, her life was turned around and she became a happy smiling person. Another example is our school motto this year, “Bleed with me”. This really sums up what it means to get personal. It means to endure something with someone you really care about and are willing to sacrifice a little of yourself for that person.
Cultivating good character is crucial to us because it sets up what people think about us in the long run. If we have good character, we will then have good morals, and then people will begin to think highly of us. The right speech experiment sums this idea up nicely. The idea that we should try to watch what we say because it has an effect on the way other people think about us is a very powerful tool. When we can change the way a person or a group of people think about us just by what we say in a single day, that is simply amazing. Also this will lead to happiness within ourselves which will make us feel good about ourselves which is something that every human strives for.
Another thing that Tolkien emphasizes is the importance of cherishing and creating beauty. In the Lord of the Rings, there is a distinct connection between happiness and beauty. This does not infer upon our society that only the beautiful people can be truly happy. Beauty comes in many layers. There is physical beauty, but mostly beauty is in art, creativity, mental, and spiritual. We need beauty in our daily lives because it inspires us and makes us strive to do better. A good example of this from our studies is our wonder and awe assignment. These things inspire beauty no matter what it was that we focused on. Everything from music to sports to school to storms, it is all beautiful in its own unique way. These things, after all, inspired us to write about them so therefore they brought out our inner beauty of creativity.
The final thing that Tolkien uses as a basis is the rediscovery of wonder. This is a very powerful statement. It means that we should see something and it should inspire us. We need to have these epiphanies every once in a while. It helps us to focus on just how strange and beautiful our lives really and truly are. One way of rediscovering wonder is to just slow life down and show delight in the simple things in life. For me, the best way for me to have a rediscovery of wonder is when I go on a retreat. It makes me center myself again and makes me realize how great everything and everyone is around me. This happens to me after every retreat I go on and this is why I love retreats so much. Another example of this is the idea of living an examined life. This makes us center ourselves again and realize what we are doing and how we can change. It also helps us to take account for what we are doing and appreciate everything that goes on around us.