Who's your Gandalf?

[littlemanpoet]

Not being able to recollect a Sammy in my life, I thought to myself, 'but I certainly have a Gandalf.' My Gandalf is someone who "says it straight", who clears away the distracting inessentials and says, "this is what's really going on", and then encourages me, as if I were Theoden shrugging off the so-called caring gestures of Wormtongue, to action.

Do you have a Gandalf?

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Do you have a Gandalf?

Yes, two actually...my father and my grandfather.

[alatar]

I'm going to define my Gandalf as that encouraging father-figure, the person in your life that guides you, is wise beyond your understanding (relatively) and lives by some ideal that structures the way that they live. No one person fits the description, and so I offer four examples in my life:

• My father. He was always a more quiet and calm man, loved to read and was very thoughtful. I see some of Gandalf in him. My father was famous for the statement, "The sun will rise tomorrow," where he meant that, in the midst of calamity, great joy and/or chaos, that the sun would show up yet again the next day despite all of our detailed planning, worries and concerns.
• My stepfather. When I think of Gandalf's bristling brows and temper, it brings this guy to mind. My stepfather - maybe a bit like Saruman? - knows a lot about making things, fixing things and changing things around. I was always amazed that he could give pretty close guesses to the problems in my (Newtonian) physics book. He is very fair, brooks no fools, has a volcanic temper yet can caper like the best hobbit. He's very "can do" - two heart valve replacements and a barely functioning heart have not stopped him from building a house, adding an addition (to a house) and replacing the engine in his truck (by himself). When I ask why he doesn't take it a little easier, he responds with, "Why!?! So I can die in my chair...you fool of a Took!" Actually, he would never quote Tolkien.
• An old friend's father. My buddy's dad knew the names of all of the trees when we went hiking, knew which plants we could eat and how to build a fire with nary a match.
• My college biology teacher. Not only was he wise, he was a wise guy, and also would bark at me when I didn't perform to what he thought was my ability. Before his class and subsequent mentoring, I thought that college professors were one step below saints. This guy put that myth to rest, and the reason that he makes me think of Gandalf is the smoking thing. Though my teacher didn't smoke, he seemed like a normal nutsy person that just so happened to know a lot about biology. To me, he reflected the 'old fallible man' part of Gandalf.

[Lindale]

Funny how it happens to me, my dad is very much like a Gandalf the Grey with short hair due to office regulations... and my beloved ex and the hairbrush incident a Gollum matter.

My dad is the gandalf of my life. From the temper to the wisdom.

"Consuelo ano ka ba bakit ang tanga mo!" [Consuelo why are you stupid?, something like Fool of a Took! to me]

And then we'd discuss justice and death penalty, Marxism and getting what you worked for, destiny and how chance and fate and personal urges and your own choices are your life, everything, man. Recently during the Manila Peninsula stuff in our country we had a long argument about the politics and justice of this land that included thinkers like Plato, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Rizal, and some of our own local writers like Amado Hernandez. Sorta like a history and lit course with his commentaries, really.

Another answer of mine is my ex. Not a ready answer, unlike my dad. My ex was, in a sense, one hell of a ride wiser than me, the little kid so intent in taking Philo courses and all sorts of books from Tolkien to Plato to the South Americans to whatnot to improve her thinking. He's three years my senior, and when we met I thought he was like a Tolkien character because of his long hair that reached six inches below the scapula. He has no beard, thank God!

He's my gandalf and my smeagol if I'm gollum. Gandalf, well, he has stuff in his head that I've never heard in others of our age--there were times, many times, when I thought he sounded like my dad. Even now, I am still amazed that his opinions, a twenty-year-old's opinions, are comparable and even worthy of my forty-something dad! He likes his philosophers, Patrick does. From Plato to Kant to Machiavelli to Nietzsche (his favorite) to the Eastern thinkers whose names I can't spell.



Anyway, we got separated, because I got a scholarship nearer my parents' place, and there he still is, continuing his degree in the university up in the northern mountains where I met him. From what he tells me, and what my friends tell me anyway, he's got no one new, and it gladdens me somehow that he still sends me words that we used to whisper in our strictest privacy and a little help whenever I see the name Jacques Derrida in my reading list.


And from what I've heard, he's go t his hair cut because of joining some fraternity, how sad for his hair that reminds me of Eol. Too sad for his hair that earned him the Black Legolas title in our archery class!

[mark12_30]

Alas, he's retired, and I haven't seen him in years; but the grey-haired, popping-up-at-unexpected-times-just-when-I-really-needed-him, Reverend Paul "PJ" Boardman was counsellor, mentor, healer, doughty warrior, and good friend.

I expect to see him in the Undying Lands.