The World Has Changed
“The world has changed.
I see it in the water.
I feel it in the Earth.
I smell it in the air.”
-Treebeard-The Lord Of the Rings; The Fellowship Of The Ring.”
When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote those words, the words which Treebeard spoke in The Fellowship Of The Ring, I wonder if he realized just how timeless they would be. Almost prophetic for the day we now live in. Prophetic, for lack of a better word.
I am not political. I will not use my platform to push a political agenda, ever. I want this space to be a place of creativity and of good. A place where beauty can be found and cherished, for I do believe that beauty and creativity are things that must be cherished now more than ever.
Still, the words of the above quote are fitting for today. Tolkien wrote The Lord Of The Rings series between 1937-1948. This was during a time of great upheaval in our world. The world was at war. Hitler was on the rampage in Europe. England was involved in that war two years before the United States entered it in 1941. I would imagine that the horrific atrocities inflicted on human life during that time made it feel as though the very earth itself was off kilter. Did the ground feel as though it rolled, reeled, and shifted? Would a cool cup of water actually be able to quench someone’s thirst? How about the changing of seasons? Did the colors spark and burn in Autumn? Did the vibrancy of spring blooms still sparkle in a rainbow of delight? Or, did it all run gray, and flat? Like something out of an old faded photograph. For, the world was changing. It would never be the same.
Most days, in this world that we now live in, I wake with those words in my heart. “The world has changed.” Everything feels different…looks different. It's as though my senses don’t know how to adapt to the rapidness of this collision of change. My heart aches for the joy and the insouciance of days long gone by. My mantra, “Find The Good”, hits a brick wall more days than not. Some days, it’s hard to recognize my home planet.
“The world has changed.” Tolkien wrote these words over 80 years ago. Even he felt it. He spoke of it in the magnificence that is The Lord Of The Rings. Of course, he was writing a fantasy world of stories for his own children to read. Still, I believe that every story has a message. Most stories contain a common theme of good vs. evil, and of redemption. You can find that theme if you look hard enough. Of course, it runs wild throughout The Lord Of The Rings.
In the prologue to the movie, The Lord of The Rings, The Fellowship Of The Ring, We hear Galadriel quoting the words of Treebeard, as she begins, “The world has changed…” Then, at the end of the quote, these lines are added.
“Much that once was was lost.
For none now live that remember it.”
Most of those who lived during WW2, that Greatest Generation, are now gone. Those who fought on the battlefields, and those who suffered and died at the hands of the greatest of evils. Even those who survived it...gone. No longer are they here for us to ask our questions to. Nor are they here for us to listen to, as they speak their truths. I fear we are on the edge of forgetting.
“For none now live that remember it.”
Always remember. Never forget. Find the good.