[lindil]

"Im beginning to feel Im under a lot of pressure from this place to compete with the people who do wish to grant themselves a degree in Tolkien."

meela, sorry if I in anyway contributed to this experience of yours. I can assure you that for my part I have no intention or wish to cause anyone anxiety! What I have posted here is my experience and offering others to share [within the parameters of the original topic] their experiences.

In all seriousness and not at all trying to be unkind, it seems that you understand your experiences completely outside of the frame of reference of the topic, which is certainly valid. I presuppose quite a few things, many of which may not be true, or seem true to our experience.

I can only encourage you to be selective in what you take in from a thread, and obviously from the DOwns in general, many people come here with an amazing amount of enthusiasm and energy, and some are still overcome with amaze at how true and powerful Tolkiens writins and philosophy is for them, often deeper than anything else in their lives. I am not saying this is a norm for anyone to strive for, but that it seems a common enough experience, others are here for community, 'lore', to explore Tolkien and Christianity or as often seems the case for all of the above in ever shifting combinations and preferences.

If you find a topic or idea that is too intense or too scholarly then perhaps that should be a warning sign that this one is maybe not for you.

If I apply your above quote to myself, I can see I think where you might be coming from. But I think that in almost every case hear, people are more interested in drawing water as deeply from the well of wisdom [ via Tolkien] as possible. Some along the way in trying to express this find that others can do so brilliantly, and while I won't say this makes me envious, it does often make we want to re-evaluate how I got to where I am and see if anything can be done about it. Tolkien has powerful effects on people and I think you see the examples of that all over the board in a myriad of ways.

Forgive the discourse, I hope it helps explain my motives if nothing else.


helen: sounds like we are in a similar boat.

My apologies to all if the above was too heavy, but I would not be suprised if Meela's experience was not so rare, and that being the case felt it deserved a rather thorough acknowledgement.