The Wisdom of the Shire

After Aragorn is crowned King he asks his mentor Gandalf if he will stay in Gondor to council him during his reign. The wizard, however, has already booked himself passage on a one-way trip to Valinor. He tells Aragorn that the Third Age—which had been Gandalf’s epoch in Middle-earth—has ended, and the Fourth Age has begun. It’s now the Age of Men.

We are living in our own Fourth Age. Humankind dominates the planet, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve been so busy producing and consuming we’ve actually altered our climate. Some scientists refer to the last two hundred years (since the start of the Industrial Revolution) as the Anthropocene period. The word means the era of the “new man.” In this short span of time humans have significantly altered biodiversity on our planet for the worse.

This is also the Age of Technology, and our various gadgets fascinate us and govern our lives in so many ways. The mobile device is our new magic. But what about the old magic? The splendor of the natural world and the miracle of living? Is this kind of enchantment eventually going to vanish from the Earth? Are facsimiles of life, such as massively multiplayer online games, really better than the massive multiplicity of real life? Do you want to wear Google’s glasses? Because I don’t.

There are so many lessons to be learned from the Hobbits. But one of the most essential is the question of wants and needs. The Shire-folk need many things: food, friendship, fun, sleep, taking delight in nature and exercise just to name a few. Their wants, however, are scanty and utilitarian. They want the tools to do their work, a snug little home to call their own, and clothes to keep them warm.

It seems like we twenty-first-century people have so many wants we don’t know what to do with ourselves. The wants rule out our needs and drive us to ruin our emotional and physical health in pursuit of that elusive dragon’s hoard. And we forget about the truly important things that make us happy—the things that are as free as the air, like our relationships with friends, family and children. Are we really going to allow the credit card consortiums to burden us with crushing debt while they cheat at the game and grow more powerful and rapacious?

Sometimes it feels like the Sarumans and the Saurons of the world are winning, doesn’t it? Where is an Elrond or Gandalf to guide us? Where’s an Aragorn to lead us? The truth is we just can’t wait for them anymore. We need to heed Merry’s advice when he says the Hobbits will never take back the Shire by merely looking “shocked and sad” about the evil that’s been done to their beloved home while they’ve been away. We have to take action, and that means participating in civic life, being a part of our communities, and not sitting by passively as powerful people or corporations do evil things to us and our environment.

Back in the ’70s the slogan “Frodo Lives!”* became a symbol of the counterculture movement. It appeared on T-shirts, on graffiti in subway tunnels, and bumper stickers. In The Lord of the Rings Frodo’s friends never gave up hope (no matter how bad things got) that the Hobbit would succeed in his seemingly impossible quest to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring. The message behind the “Frodo Lives!” catchphrase was the idea that the “little guy” could win any struggle.

The Shire isn’t a real place. We all know that. But the standards of the Hobbits can be our own. Being a part of the Shire means believing in the concepts of egalitarianism and morality. A way of living that is sustainable and sufficient. It’s about having a demeanor of good cheer and civility. Hobbits are totally present and aware of what’s going on around them. They’re so focused on life they really don’t have time to ponder death. And they share a deep friendship with the earth.

The more people who believe in the Shire and what it stands for, the less likely it will slowly begin to fade from the world, leaving nothing behind but a story in a book. We love this place that Tolkien invented because we want to go there. As Peter S. Beagle wrote almost half a century ago in his essay “Tolkien’s Magic Ring,” “Something of ourselves has gone into reading it, and so it belongs to us.”

The Shire can become as real as we make it in our own lives and communities and countries. It doesn’t have to exist merely in our thoughts or on the tour of a movie set in New Zealand. There are millions of fans of Tolkien’s books as well as Peter Jackson’s film adaptations. Imagine what we might be able to accomplish if we raised our voices together in a fellowship of the Shire. We would be a force to be reckoned with. “The Shire lives!” could be the motto of our own Fourth Age.

We all have the potential to do extraordinary things just like a modest Hobbit, or even an unassuming professor of philology who wrote treasured classics that have stood the test of time. But first we have to start our journey on “the Road” as Bilbo called the adventure that is life. He likened this adventure to a great river with a source at each doorstep where “every path was its tributary.”

Try opening your heart to new ways of doing things. Don’t be afraid of the cynics and the Orcs of the world. The only thing holding you back is your own self-doubt and the burdens of the past that, hopefully, you are ready to let go of—like a cursed ring slipping from your finger. And then you will find yourself on one of those paths leading to the Road.

Our lives have great potential to be exciting adventures, and there are risks along the way, but they’re definitely risks worth taking. If your feet are grounded in a system of beliefs that are as solid and enduring as those born in the Shire, you’ll be certain to reach your goals at every stage along the Road of your long and happy life.

The Wisdom of the Shire Tells Us …

“All paths lead to the Road, and the wisdom will guide you there and back to the Shire—a country that exists inside our hearts, a truth that is revealed to the world by our honorable actions.”