You’ve probably heard this quote by Tolkien from Lord of the Rings at some time in your life. I know I have. But today I urge you to read it slowly (I’ve broken a long paragraph into some shorter pieces) and take it to your life. Think about what sort of tale you have fallen into. Where would you like to turn back? What do you suppose keeps you moving in the story? There are lots of questions to consider. Read the quote and take a long look at one story or the larger story of your life.
“We shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way.
The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say.
But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it.
But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten.
We hear about those as just went on — and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same — like old Mr Bilbo.
But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”
— J.R.R. Tolkien
