Quote of the Week: from Bilbo Baggins

Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today.  Good morning!  But please come to Tea...any time you like!  Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye!          ---Bilbo Baggins

J. R. R. Tolkien's 1939 fantasy novel The Hobbit introduced Middle Earth, its history and inhabitants to the reading public...with the Lord of the Rings trilogy expanding on it in the 1950's and subsequent movie adaptations over the last two decades.  I've always felt that they ruined The Hobbit in the recent movie series by trying to make it into a Lord of the Rings prequel...the original written tale has a completely different flavor, centering around its protagonist, the diminutive hobbit Bilbo Baggins, as he brings his backwoods common sense and wiliness to the overriding questions of a world in conflict.  I thought that Marty Freeman's faithful and compelling film portrayal of Bilbo was the series' only redeeming feature, but sadly the filmmakers diminished his role as it wore on, in the processing distorting the book beyond recognition with added characters and subplots dominating the narrative.  But enough of my movie criticism and back to the quote...

Bilbo Baggins by nature is a homebody...he likes his hobbit hole of a house, his books, smokes, garden, routine...and most of all, privacy.  I dig that and always thought that the wizard Gandalf thoroughly violated the rules of hospitality by inviting the dwarf party over without Bilbo's consent.  That's a big problem I have with people who tend to override my dignity and right to set my own boundaries with their condescension and sense of social position and self-importance: pretty disrespectful, I say.  In today's topsy-turvy times of social distancing in light of this coronavirus pandemic, I think of lot of people find themselves feeling uncomfortable with the mandated separations: too many equate concepts like progress, social consciousness, and even love with physically clustering in groups...the closer together and the more people the better: just look at all the TV ads promoting this.  Better to take a good look at yourself and realize that if you have an extroverted bent to your social orientation, that doesn't necessarily entail assuming that those of a more reclusive nature are deficient in some way and need "a little push", as Gandalf later rationalized his behavior toward Bilbo.  As disturbing and unpleasant as these times are to me, at least for a while I feel I'm "off the hook" from others trying to change me.  I remember hearing somebody once say "Life's a party!", but each of us has our own idea of what a party is...let's not impose our definitions on others...