In one sense I am probably a worse person for Middle Earth since I spend so much time happily rereading Tolkien and on Tolkien related websites which I could devote to reading that huge pile of bought but unread books I posess or doing something career advancing.
Furthermore in my first Tolkien phase in my adolescence it encouraged an extant interest in languages which eventually led me to follow my heart rather than my exam grades when I chose my A-Levels ( however my grannie's wish that I should become a doctor was a non-starter as I knew it would involve cutting up dead people - this was before I learned that the living are much scarier!)
Anyway I don't think that I can entirely blame Tolkien for my poor career choices and I had blast for 4 years doing English and French Lit even though I hadn't a clue what I would do with it. At least it pleased my personal tutor that she had a charge who was positively ecstatic about the prospect of studying her own subject of linguistics. Strangely enough though it was at this point, I left Tolkien for a long time. Partly, I had little time to read anything of my own choice and partly, I perceived that I was expected to be interested in more serious stuff.
Also I had exhausted the supply other than the slowly emerging HoME which I really didn't have time to digest.
However while I might have had a different and more successful career without Tolkien, I don't want to be melodramatic but there is a distinct possibility that I would not be alive without Tolkien. When I first read it, I was having a particularly bad time at school and really wanted to die. I don't think I could have survived the real world if I had't had middle earth to escape to.
When I returned to Tolkien, it also had a therepeutic value. It was partly the films that brought me back - I had thought I wouldn't want to see them, having such a clear picture of them in my head but as soon as I saw a trailer my resolve melted. The FOTR came out a matter of weeks after my mother died. We knew her cancer was terminal from diagnosis, but she went through so much against the odds and won a little precious remission. I had long ago learnt by heart Sam's song in Cirith Ungol and I had copied it for her. And it really summed up her attitude - she kept on going in the face of what was logically a hopeless situation. I had put my life on hold to care for her and when she died - very suddenly in the end- I was absolutely bereft, emotionally and physically exhausted. Middle Earth was again a comfort - going back to the books may have been escapism and regression but it was also healing. Through Tolkien I have made some good friends, one in particular who was more help than any counsellor of priest could have been as I grieved. So on the scale of things I think I come out better because of Tolkien - as a person if not as an economic unit. I am not sure that another author could have had quite the same effect.. I mean I found the entire Forsyte Chronicles a distraction when I was ill between Tolkien phases but it hasn't had such a lasting or profound impact..
Now I worry that I should do something more constructive with my time and it slightly concerning that I am often keener to find out what is happening on the downs or my other board than what is going on in the lives of my "real" friends. However most of my real friends have children and are unable to talk about anything else
which gets a bit tedious ..... arguing the toss about balrog wings and elf ears beats getting a far too detailed account of god-son's potty training believe me.
