Nebulous "It" and Absolutes

[davem]

Maybe you're right - I must be honest, I've been kind of using this thread to make sense of an incident, which it wouldn't be right to go into here, but it involved something very bad which happened to a person I knew.

It all comes down to suffering & its effects. Do we grow through suffering - & even if we do, is that enough to absolve the Creator, or fate. If the suffering is so extreme it breaks us (even if we're re-made into something higher, more spiritually aware) would that be enough to make it ok to have broken us.

Sam & Frodo come through the quest at opposite ends of an extreme. They stand at the Sammath Naur, Ring gone into the Flames, & Sam tells Frodo they should get out of there, becuase its not like him to just give up, & Frodo reponds, maybe not, but its like things are in the world. Sam speaks subjectively. Frodo objectively. Sam says 'Never say die', Frodo says 'Everything dies'.

Frodo may have become more Elvish - but he's a Hobbit, not an Elf. He's lost himself - & in the end I suppose that's the 'It' we're talking about - everything that made him who he was, which became bound up with & symbolised by the Ring.

I just can't shake the feeling that what happened to Frodo was 'wrong' - even if he chose it - but it wasn't a free choice. as someone has said, it was the lesser of two evils, & that seems just plain wrong - you afre faced with choosing the lesser of two evils, & that choice breaks you. Yet, it is like things are in the world.

[symestreem]

davem, that's pretty profound. Wow.

It all comes down to suffering & its effects. Do we grow through suffering - & even if we do, is that enough to absolve the Creator, or fate. If the suffering is so extreme it breaks us (even if we're re-made into something higher, more spiritually aware) would that be enough to make it ok to have broken us.

Turn the question around. If we have the opportunity to have the opportunity to grow, and we are not given it to save us some anguish, is that fair?

Frodo may have become more Elvish - but he's a Hobbit, not an Elf. He's lost himself - & in the end I suppose that's the 'It' we're talking about - everything that made him who he was, which became bound up with & symbolised by the Ring.

What makes Frodo a Hobbit? A pair of pointy ears and furry feet? What you look like is a chance result of the genetic lottery. It's what you are that counts, and Frodo is different from the others that look like him. He's more 'elvish' (I hesitate to use this term, since it is not accurate- maybe saying he is 'higher' is better) to begin with. I don't know if we can really resolve this, because it comes down to who he is. Who is anyone? What makes a person them? Who am I, really?

[Imladris]

The thing with Frodo is that he grew intellectually and spiritually. The Hobbits were a fairly simple folk, with simple traditions, with simple thinking. They cared more for the homey pleasantries of life and, on the whole, were optimistic.

The elves, on the other hand, were intelligent and had a more realistic view on life. They realized that things came to an end, even good things. That's what Frodo came to realize as well.

Frodo is not a broken person. When I read LotR for the first time, that is not what instantly popped into my head. He had suffered much and grown much. He's like a tree that grows stronger through the storms. If you keep it sheltered, it won't grow as strong. During the storms it may loose a limb or two, but it's heart -- it's root-- remains the same. And in time those limbs will grow back stronger and different thatn before.

You can either view growing through anguish or not growing at all a lesser of two evils but in my mind, it is not so. Wouldn't you rather grow and discover the truth of the world, than not grow at all and live in a delusionary reality?

[davem]

Of course Frodo grew, but into what, & was it what he wanted to grow into? Why should he have had to grow in a way he had no say in?

In other words, growth through suffering is all very nice sounding, but in reality the process isoften just horrible & cruel, & not spiritual at all - even if we can call the result 'spiritual'. But we could also ask what makes Frodo 'spiritual' in the same way as we can ask 'What makes Frodo a Hobbit'?.

Is he a more 'spiritual' being at the end because he's lost everything he had & resigned himself to his fate - I'm not sure this constitutes 'spirituality'. But if not, what does?

He 'grows, beyond what he was, becomes too large for the little world of the Shire - but Bilbo says he loved the woods, fields & little rivers - did someone/something just decide to take them away, or did he give them up in full knowledge, or just lose them along the way - or cast them away like the Orc gear in Mordor. Had he come to a point where he thought of what he had been, a Hobbit wandering the Shire & drinking in the local pub as being somehow 'uncouth', simplistic - in a sense 'Orcish', so that he was throwing away his own past & hobbit nature along with the Orc mail & sword, & deliberately deciding to become an 'Elf'?

Yet, he's not, & can never be, an Elf, so what has he become?

[Imladris]

I don't quite understand what you mean when you ask, "What did Frodo grow into?" He didn't grow into anything at all. When you grow like Frodo did, you gain understanding of the world and how it operates. You don't grow into a different, super spiritual person.

Yes, Frodo did give it up. I believe that this has been said before, but Frodo made a conscious descision to continue his quest. Thus, he willingly gave up everything he lost (his innocense, etc). But you're forgetting that he gained so much more than he lost. He gained the joy of seeing the hobbits in peace, of seeing Middle-earth saved. He gained understanding of pity and mercy.

I do not believe that Frodo cast the Shire away like orc gear, that he viewed the hobbit ways as uncouth. That is against his very nature, and the ending would have been infused with hate, which it wasn't.

Frodo suffered much, gained much, saved much. As a reward, he went to Valinor. That's all what happened. It was the only place he could go that would ease his suffering. Isn't that worth the pain, living your life out with Bilbo and the elves? Of course, it doesn't say that his troubles were relieved, but I believe that is heavily understated.

[Dininziliel]

Davem, I will offer again part of the quote posted earlier from Letter #181:

. . . still there are abnormal situations in which one may be placed. ‘Sacrificial’ situations, I should call them: sc. Positions in which the ‘good’ of the world depends on the behaviour of an individual in circumstances which demand of him suffering and endurance far beyond the normal . . . he is in a sense doomed to failure, doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his ‘will’: that is against any choice he could make or would make unfettered, not under the duress.

Clearly, Tolkien is saying that there are circumstances which take us beyond our breaking point and do so against our will. So, yes--the tides of life can break us. Is this fair? Is this right? I think the answer depends on whether one believes she or he created her- or himself or that we are children of Eru/God. Here again we have the notion of personal self vs. self as part of a universal whole. What I wish for most in my life is to be able to hold to my faith that I am a child of Eru/God, a part of the universal whole while in the midst of St. John's Dark Night, Buchenwald, or any other thing in this world that those filled with self-will can pervert and impose--to hold onto the knowledge that there is much more beyond this life that cannot be seen. I know it can be done for there were some who emerged from such horrors into the light, assuredly not unscarred & as before, but scarred & transformed. This gives me certain knowledge that there is hope--a peace that passes understanding.

There is a difference between happiness & joy; innocence & wisdom; passion & compassion. I would rather have the latters than the formers--although the journey between those dichotomies is not one I eagerly embark upon.

Frodo could not be healed in ME, and he could be no more certain about what would happen in Valinor than he was about Mt. Doom. Yet he willingly went on both journeys.

Tolkien says that healing occurs in Valinor, ergo Frodo is healed after sailing into the uttermost West. He was a Ringbearer; we are all Ringbearers & therefore are all eligible to be healed. Frodo was willing to surrender self again to unknown & unknowable circumstances. He was not attached to self unto death of self, but was willing to surrender to his creator's will. Only a few were granted the trip to Valinor in a white ship to heal before departing their bodies. When faced with void & brokenness, where do we get to go? What do we get to do to heal? Are we not called to surrender self to our creator in order to be transformed and to experience joy again? (And no true joy is absent of sorrow.) Perhaps this post-broken surrender of self actually is, after all, our white ship into the uttermost West.

This, I think, is the harder journey of the two--many willingly attempt the journey to Mr. Doom with their Ring; almost none choose the white ship after failing the impossible task.

[davem]

Yet, Frodo doesn't seem to be made any happier by this process of spiritual growth he goes through. Tolkien says he considers himself to be a 'broken failure' at the end. He does sacrifice everything for others, but it doesn't really seem to bring him any sense of even 'spiritual' achievement.

I am reminded of a couple of lines from The Sea Bell, one where he arrives at Faery, & proclaims 'Here I stand, King of this land!', & then the last line, 'For still they speak not, men that I meet'. Frodo goes from being the most imporatnt person in the world, he is the central concern of the 'great', the fate of the world lies in his hand (literally). He is, in his own estimation, & whether he likes it, 'King of this Land'. Then he comes back home, a 'broken failure' & is ignored by the very people he sacrificed everything to save, but rather than blame them, he blames himself.

So, spiritual growth doesn't include, can actually preclude, happiness (of the worldly kind, at least). Then what? We should do it anyway - make the sacrifice? But Frodo's sacrifice is not made to achieve 'spiritual growth' - in fact, if that was his motivation, he would probably have run away to live on a mountain top, or at least in Rivendell with Bilbo, long before.

I'd say that 'spiritual growth' was never in Frodo's mind, & happened as a by-product, something that he had never desired. Of course, he wanted to be rid of the Ring - firstly for himself, them for the Shire, then for the world, but he didn't want to become a psuedo Elf & go live in the West, & my own feeling is that he went into the West principally because he could no longer stay in the World. He was excluded by his own final state from remaining in the Shire. He gave up most of what he loved & had the rest taken from him.

I don't think, looked at from this point of view, that 'spiritual growth' has a lot to advocate it to the layman!

But, we come back to 'trust'/estel. Faith that there is some purpose to our existence, that Spiritual growth, even if forced on us, is for something, & will be worth having. Or even if not, that the bigger picture is more important than our individual selves - our story is simply part of a greater story. As Charles Williams said (seeing us as 'strands' in a great 'Web') The strand exists for the Web, not the web for the strand'.

So, someone has to give up the things they love & care about - they have to 'grow spiritually' whether they want to or not.