“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Why does this seem so relevant, nearly seventy years after the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring? I suppose because, on one hand, it really can be dangerous leaving the house right now. But that wasn’t the danger Tolkien was speaking of.
The danger is in being changed. Of opening yourself, as well as the door. Staying inside, metaphorically speaking, is complacency and growing comfortable. Old-fashioned, as were those hobbits in Hobbiton.
As Oscar Wilde wrote in An Ideal Husband: “Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.”
Michael's Musings 