The Wisdom of the Shire

Imagine there are two magic rings of invisibility. One is given to a just person, the other to an unjust person. Both people can now sneak into stores and take whatever they want. Or creep into a bank or jewelry store and heist everything. They can kill with impunity, or ravish at will. They have become godlike. Would the just person be able to withstand this kind of temptation?

The Greek philosopher Plato didn’t think so. He proposed an argument very similar to this one 2,400 years ago in his Republic. The magic ring in his discourse was modeled on the legend of Gyges, a shepherd who discovers a golden ring in a tomb that gives him the remarkable power to vanish.*

Gyges uses his newfound source of power to seduce a queen, kill a king and take over a kingdom. Plato argued that members of a society believe (at least behind closed doors) that unjust behavior is more profitable than acting according to laws. His own society, he considered, would think a man a fool if he didn’t use the power of a ring of invisibility to get what he wanted. (Does this kind of rationale remind anyone of a recent banking crisis?)

Tolkien certainly knew of the story of Gyges from his early childhood—he loved the Greek myths. And he probably read Plato’s Republic while still a schoolboy, most likely in ancient Greek. The legend of Gyges and Plato’s discourse on the ring of invisibility have echoes throughout Tolkien’s stories. Gollum and Bilbo are the opposite sides of a coin—the just and unjust man who are both given the power of a ring of invisibility. Gollum uses it to murder babies in their sleep. Bilbo uses it to hide from those pesky Sackville-Bagginses. That’s a big difference.*

Tolkien took this idea of a magic ring with corrupting powers and added a Norse twist. The story of a wizard or warlock depositing part of their spirit in an object outside of their body to keep it safe from harm is a common story in northern European mythology. A piece of Sauron’s external soul is contained in the One Ring and it’s made of a nearly imperishable substance that can only be destroyed by melting it in the fires in which it was created. So long as the Ring still exists in Middle-earth, no matter if it’s on the bottom of a river, or in the waistcoat pocket of a Hobbit in the Shire, Sauron’s lingering spirit can find it one day and become whole again.*

Tolkien did not like people assigning allegories to his Ring of Doom. He even wrote how much he disliked “allegory in all its manifestations” in his foreword to a later edition of The Lord of the Rings. To him the Ring was what it was—an external-soul repository for a magical evil entity that has the power to corrupt all those who take possession of it (Isildur, Gollum, and eventually even Bilbo and Frodo). The spirit of the Ring is inherently destructive because Sauron’s spirit has an insatiable lust for power and dominion over other living beings. Therefore the One Ring magnifies whatever bad traits are already inside the wearer of the Ring.*

For the rest of us, however, Sauron’s Ring serves as a convenient analogy. It has seeped into the cultural subconscious: we all carry our own Ring of Doom. It could be some traumatic burden from the past, or a financial or health concern in the here and now. And most of us fear the future and the unknown, aka death. Whatever the case, the burden of our Ring will eventually destroy us, unless we let it go.

One of Frodo’s greatest traits is his focus. Once he decides to accept the quest to destroy the Ring, he will not give up. He heads into Mordor understanding that he will never make it back home to his beloved Shire. His focus carries over to Sam who takes up the burden of the Ring when Frodo is captured by Orcs. Sam and Frodo go through terrible trials in Mordor, facing their worst fears. They overcome these challenges through sheer strength of will and the enduring power of true friendship—an example we can use in our relationships with our own friends.

I’ve seen the power of friendship to save someone burdened by a Ring of Doom. A dear childhood friend had become lost in despair and was drinking himself to death. His coworkers cared about him so much they held an intervention. My friend got into a program that involved climbing mountains with other addicts, and even though it was the challenge of his life, with every peak he summited his spirit was healed a little more. Everything changed about him for the better—his health, his looks, his sense of humor. He had rediscovered the joy of being alive: the pure joy of standing on the top of a fourteen-thousand-foot-tall mountain and knowing he was free.

The alternative to letting go of your burden is to end up like the depraved Gollum, obsessed like some addict for a fix of the Ring. Even Bilbo, the kindhearted decent Hobbit obsessed with comfy armchairs and teatime is eventually consumed by the negative power of the Ring. Gandalf has to do his own little intervention at Bag End when he forces Bilbo to part with his treasure, handing the burden off to Frodo.*

For his part, Frodo nearly has his soul ripped from his body in his effort to get the Ring to Mount Doom. By the end of the journey all of his memories of good things have been stripped from his being. He can’t remember what food tastes like, or the feel of water or grass on his feet. He’s consumed by the image of Sauron’s “wheel of fire.” And finally, when he’s standing at the very Crack of Doom, he can’t give up the Ring. He slips it on his finger, intending to keep it forever. His merciful treatment of Gollum—a creature even more consumed by his lust for the precious object than Frodo—is the only thing that saves the Hobbit from failing in his quest and becoming yet another Gollum.

The gentle gardener Samwise Gamgee is also not immune to the power of the Ring to create delusions of grandeur in the one who possesses it. Sam takes the Ring after Frodo is poisoned by Shelob with the intention of keeping it from falling into the hands of the enemy. Soon after the Ring starts to create “wild fantasies” in the modest Hobbit’s mind. He imagines himself as some kind of Middle-earth superhero, marching at the head of a great army to attack Sauron’s realm. He sees himself wielding godlike powers, bringing the wastes of Mordor back to life with a mere sweep of his hand. But then his “plain Hobbit-sense” takes control. He comprehends a simple truth: he does not have the strength to carry such a burden. All he really needs in life, he knows in his heart, is to be a free man, with his own little garden.*

Those of us who dwell outside the Shire find it more difficult to let go of our yearning for power and approbation. And we humans are prodigiously opportunistic about it. How else can you explain the phenomenon of candidates seeking high-level positions in government for which they are absolutely unqualified, or talentless nitwits parading their inane lives on TV and the Internet and accepting the title of “stars”?

I’ve had my own taste of delusion. When I was a teenager I won a prestigious playwriting contest and had my work produced off-Broadway. I grew up in a small town, two blocks away from the actor Kyle MacLachlan (whose movie Blue Velvet had just come out), and I assumed people from our neighborhood must be destined for fame. After my play opened to critical acclaim I was approached by the legendary publishers Samuel French to print my work. I left their office one golden September day, my first writing contract clutched in my hand, and felt like I owned New York City—Arthur Miller watch out! As I walked blithely down the sidewalk on Forty-fifth Street, practicing my Tony Award speech, a homeless man stumbled blindly into my path from an alley. He latched onto me—grabbed me by both arms and breathed his boozy breath into my face saying, “Hey kid. Can you spare some money? I’m a playwright down on his luck.”

I suppose I should have bought him a sandwich and asked him what had gone wrong with his career. I might have learned a valuable lesson about life in the theater. But I didn’t. Instead, I took off running in terror as if I’d seen the Ghost of Future Failed Playwrights. I never had another play produced after that initial success. No matter how hard I tried. My failure as a playwright haunted me for years and soured my life and career, and I often thought of that poor Gollum-like wretch who prophesied my doom as a thespian. I eventually found fulfillment as a writer and a creative person in many different ways. But as a playwright? Nope. One day I finally tossed aside that desire—like an evil ring into a lava pit—and watched it melt away.

Sometimes the Ring of Doom is somebody else’s burden that carries over to your own life. Boromir was a valiant man and virtuous of heart. In any other tale he would have been one of the heroes of the story.* But Boromir’s father was Denethor, a Man corrupted by an insane hunger to seize the Ring and use it for himself. Denethor infuses Boromir with this heavy charge—to bring the Ring to Gondor no matter what the cost. The price for Boromir is the loss of his honor when he tries to take the Ring from Frodo. He knows in his heart the Ring is evil, but “a madness” overtakes his soul—and the longing to make his father proud.

Just because somebody we know or love has an obsession or a bad habit doesn’t mean we have to let it taint our lives. Your life is your own and shouldn’t be an extension of somebody else’s aspirations or a reflection of their foibles. We have the power to focus our thoughts in a positive way and to decide how to best use the time we have. The way you do that is by making a concerted effort to rein in negative desires and magnify the beneficial ones.

The Shire-folk are more fortunate than us. Our modern lives are so incredibly complicated and fraught with anxiety compared to theirs. The Hobbits set about fixing an unfavorable situation or a bad state of mind with a practical solution. If you were a Hobbit and complaining of being overweight, one of your friends would hand you a walking stick and say with a smile, “Let’s go for a long stroll toward Woody End.” If you hated your job at the mill at Bywater, working for that good-for-nothing Ted Sandyman, someone might suggest you start your own mill up the river. It’s a free Shire, right? Down in the dumps? Get to work in your garden—because it’s full of weeds! Can’t sleep at night? You need more walking and gardening. Sick at heart? Seek out your friends and tell them your woes. Magic Ring of Doom burning a hole in your velvet waistcoat pocket?

The Wisdom of the Shire Tells Us …

“Bear your own Ring of Doom only for as long as you deem necessary. When the time is right, cast it into the fire and be free of the burden.”