We All May Shrink When The Call Comes
Frodo in The Lord of the Rings had some relatable complaints
As an enjoyer of the The Lord of the Rings films, I’ve never much liked Frodo Baggins. Frodo is the chief protagonist of the series, the Ringer Bearer, the “Chosen One” of sorts, and he can be pretty fussy. Frodo is always going on about the heaviness of the Ring, and complaining about the burden of his quest. Sometimes he creepily fondles it and makes repeated attempts to go it alone all the way to Mordor. It can get a bit annoying. Such is the case in the Tolkien books as well. In our brand new Geeky Stoics book club we are reading The Fellowship of the Ring together with members of this community. In the book, Frodo is more or less the same.
If you Google search “Frodo complaining” you get some hilarious results. Highly trafficked Reddit posts such as:
So Does anyone else think Frodo's a bitch? | In Defense of Frodo - In Support of Hated Characters | Why is Frodo so wimpy in LOTR movies?
Frodo hatred is a pretty common thing. Few are impressed by the reluctant hero at the beginning of his journey, something I hear often about other iconic leads such as Luke Skywalker, in Star Wars: A New Hope.
We don’t like complainers. I certainly don’t. Especially when there is something vitally important that must be done.
Well, that’s easy to say, until you’re the Ring Bearer.
Last weekend I was in West Virginia helping lead our Boy Scout troop on a ski trip at Timberline Mountain. It was a perfect weekend. Nothing but fresh powder and tons more coming down as we were getting started on the slopes. I hadn’t been skiing in a few years, and I was very excited to be there and flying down these beautiful, Narnia in winter-like routes.
To be on the trip cost me about $150. Then I realized my gloves were not appropriate for the weather, my ski goggles went missing, and I needed a face mask to endure the snow and ice hitting my face on the slopes. So I spent another $220 I really did not want to spend.
It had been about two hours on the slopes when my phone started buzzing in my pocket. I checked the adult leader text message thread and sure enough, one of the boys got hurt. He’d taken a spill on the slopes and his knee was busted, an injury I’m quite familiar with. I got onto the ski lift with some other scouts and went up to the top.
As I was preparing to go down, the text message I feared arrived. “Stephen, James, or Carla we need one of you to be the second adult in the car to get Luke to the hospital.”
I winced. Immediately the thought crossed my mind, “I’ll stand here a few minutes and see if James or Carla answers first.”
I did not want to do my job. That boy was down there in the medical unit with an injury I’ve had twice, in a lot of pain, and I hesitated for a few moments.
With my eyes firmly rolled into the back of my head I responded. “Coming down the mountain now. Be there in 10.”
And like that, I was done for the day. So much for that new gear I bought. So much for the cost to be here. On my way down the mountain, I was interpreting this situation as being about me and my misfortune.
“Don’t be overheard complaining…Not even to yourself.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.9
I wished this wasn’t happening. I wished I had been skiing when the text message arrived and that I hadn’t felt the buzz of the incoming crisis in my pocket.
After arriving at the lodge I returned my rental gear and trudged over to the medical unit. I am pretty sure I wasn’t showing my displeasure with the situation too visibly, but I know what was in my mind. Frustration and bitterness.
It wasn’t until the hour-long drive to the hospital ended that my focus began to shift from “my loss” of a day skiing and to the task at hand, which was my sworn responsibility to get this kid some care.
I repeated to myself, “I’m a volunteer leader, not a Scout. I’m a volunteer leader, not a Scout.”
This was what I actually signed up for when I joined a Boy Scout troop for a ski trip. Responsibility. Burden. Investment of time and resources on behalf of other people’s kids. Just like the leaders who had done the same for me 20 years ago.
But still, I whined. I didn’t embrace my duty with a joyful spirit.
It wasn’t until I returned home and joined the Geeky Stoics book club for a conversation about the first six chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, that I realized what I had done.
One of the guests on the video chat spoke about Frodo Baggins’ reputation for being a whiner, noting three or four different occasions of him complaining about the quest in a single chapter of the book.
We read a popular passage from the book and film together,
Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
I was Frodo. And so are we all at one point or another.
The Lord of the Rings is about an adventure that nobody wants to take. It’s about a collection of Hobbits who live incredibly comfortable lives in a paradise that must carry a burden to save their home. It’s a task that no one from their home will thank them for in the end.
While Frodo has friends in Sam, Merry, and Pippin who choose to come along and help him with that burden, the whole situation feels like one where it should have been someone else’s problem.
Why didn’t Bilbo destroy this Ring?
Why didn’t someone kill Gollum when they had the chance?
Why can’t the mighty wizard Gandalf carry this Ring instead?
This Is What I Trained For
All year I’ve been reading books on Stoicism and rattling around in my brain are passages I’ve loved such as, “Don’t be overheard complaining…Not even to yourself,” (Marcus Aurelius) and, “Now, all the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life—things from which you should never hope for exemption or seek escape” (Seneca).
And when the time came, these quotes didn’t magically fix me or flash before my eyes like a warning light that I was being childish.
Such is life. Another Stoic by the name of Epictetus talks about living out philosophy like a boxer who trains in the ring daily, constantly getting the crap beaten out of them. But we say to ourselves, “What should each of us say to every trial we face? This is what I’ve trained for, for this my discipline!”
This is the training. The reading and the writing. Then comes the trials, which happen in the real world. Seldom do they announce themselves like,
“HEY STEPHEN, HEY STEPHEN! THIS PROBLEM IS A CHANCE FOR YOU TO TEST ALL THAT PHILOSOPHY YOU’VE BEEN READING!”
I didn’t realize it until a week after the fact that the crisis on the ski slopes was one such test. I did my duty, but I resented it the entire time and made that known in how I carried myself. I failed.
But next time, perhaps I’ll do better.
Great column Stephen! I can relate to this all too much...all my reading of philosophy and I still regularly act like someone who hasn't read any at all! Great reminder and comforting to know I'm not the only one!