Lesson from Lord of the Rings

I have been watching my DVD collection of Lord of the Rings lately.  In a movie series of this scope, there are many new aspects to the story and its presentation that reveal themselves to me with each viewing, and it is fun to make new discoveries.  But one thing that struck me from the first time I ever saw it (and this isn't quite so apparent in the book) is the sense of epic importance that the present moment, the "now", so to speak, held for most of the story.  If the protagonists didn't focus intently on whatever happened to be immediately before them, then not only would their futures be in peril, but often also the future of Middle-Earth (author J.R.R. Tolkien's name for his fantasy planet).  The movies' extended version tended to mitigate this almost constant sense of urgent crisis by adding some scenes that gave some (usually humorous) respite to the drama.  But the more commonly-shown edited version is very, very intense.  And that brings to me a lesson of sorts that I can choose to follow.

The lesson is this: I may not be living in a time and place when and where the fate of the world hinges on my actions from one minute to the next.  But the fact still remains that this IS MY life, my one shot at it in fact, and it is only through this present moment that I can live through it and make a difference.  Maybe my choices won't have a gigantic instant effect on this often sorry world I live in, but they can contribute down the line to something better. Maybe I should just step up to the "now" and increase my intensity a couple of levels!

I am looking forward to watching The Hobbit when it comes out in theaters soon.  I hope that Peter Jackson, the movie's director, has been careful to include all of the book's events (something he failed in with his Lord of the Rings undertaking, as good as the final product was). For there is another big lesson from this tale as well, a lesson that the earlier animated version of The Hobbit completely omitted... 

I can't put off fulfilling my aspirations until "later": NOW is the only time guaranteed me, and it's "about time" I realize that on a deeper level...