The prompt:

The following is an Associated Press article from November 2006.

BALTIMORE — It took 12 surgeons, six operating rooms and five donors to pull it off, but five desperate strangers simultaneously received new organs in what hospital officials Monday described as the first-ever quintuple kidney transplant.

All five recipients, three men and two women, were doing fine, as were the five organ donors, all women, said Eric Vohr, a spokesman at the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Transplant Center. The 10 participants came from Canada, Maine, Maryland, West Virginia, Florida and California.

Several triple transplants have been done at Johns Hopkins, but hospital officials said the five simultaneous transplants performed last Tuesday were a first.

Four of the sick patients had approached Johns Hopkins with a relative who was willing to donate a kidney but was an incompatible donor. The fifth patient had been on a waiting list for a kidney from a dead person.

Together, those nine people and an altruistic donor, someone willing to give a kidney to anyone who needed it, had enough matched kidneys among them to pull off a complex, five-way swap.

Once the swap was agreed to, the transplants were done all at the same time to prevent anyone from backing out later or in case someone fell ill.

Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of Hopkins’ transplant centre and head of the transplant team, pronounced the interlocking deal “a demonstration to the rest of the country that this is what’s possible when people work together.”

Sheila Thornton, 63, of Edgewood, said she felt “just joy, joy, it’s almost inexplicable,” after she learned she would receive a kidney from Sandra Loevner, 63, of Sarasota, Fla., whom she had never met.

“That really hit home,” Thornton said of receiving a lifesaving gift from a stranger. “How do you thank somebody?”

The altruistic donor, Honore Rothstein of Martinsburg, W.Va., decided to donate a kidney after losing her husband to a brain hemorrhage and her daughter to an overdose. She did not know any of the donors or recipients.

“I’m thrilled I’m giving to somebody,” Rothstein said, sitting next to Kristine Jantzi, 40, of Bangor, Maine, who received her kidney. “Her mom couldn’t give to her, and I couldn’t save my daughter.”

The operations involved six operating rooms, 12 surgeons, 11 anesthesiologists, and 18 nurses, and took place over 10 hours. The removal of the donor organs began at 7:15 a.m. and was completed by 11 a.m. The kidneys were implanted in operations that began at 1 p.m. and were finished at 5:15 p.m.

Last year, Johns Hopkins doctors performed a triple transplant also involving an altruistic donor. The donor was from a Christian group, many of whose members have given kidneys to strangers.

Annie Moore, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit organization that coordinates U.S. organ transplants, said she wasn’t aware of any other quintuple kidney transplants. Triple transplants are the biggest that have been performed up to now, and paired transplants are more common, Moore said.

Most kidney transplants use organs taken from cadavers, but doctors prefer organs from live donors because the success rates are higher.

In a live-donor practice used increasingly in the U.S. over the past few years, a patient who needs a kidney is matched up with a compatible stranger if the patient lines up a friend or relative willing to donate an organ to a stranger, too.

About 16,500 kidney transplants were performed in the United States in 2005, of which about 10,000 involved organs taken from dead people and 6,500 from living donors, according to the Organ Procurement and Transportation Network

About 70,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the United States. The wait averages about five years, during which time 30,000 will either die or become too sick for a transplant, Montgomery said.

Montgomery called for a national kidney swap program, saying it could help ease the shortage of transplant organs and cut costs by getting people off dialysis. He said 6,000 people on the waiting list for a kidney from a dead person have a willing but incompatible donor.

He noted, however, that live-donor kidney swaps present ethical problems for some institutions since federal law prohibits receiving something of value in exchange for an organ. Some institutions feel multiple arrangements come uncomfortably close to quid pro quo, Montgomery said. He called for a clarification of the law.

The complicated swap worked this way:

Rothstein donated her kidney to Jantzi. Jantzi was incompatible with the kidney offered by her adoptive mother, Florence Jantzi, a Christian missionary who donated her kidney to George Brooks, 52, a mechanic who was not compatible with the kidney offered by his wife, Sharon Brooks.

Sharon Brooks, 55, a telephone company maintenance administrator, donated her kidney to Gary Persell, 61, a retired film distributor. His wife, Leslie, 61, a retired history teacher, gave her kidney to Gerald Loevner, 77, a real estate developer. Loevner’s wife, Sandra, gave a kidney to Sheila Thornton, a retired elementary school teacher.

Question One: Is this a sale of a kidney?

How do you define a sale? Is the exchange of money necessary? Isn’t a barter a type of sale? In pioneer days, you might have given your doctor a chicken as payment for services. However, the exchange of goods and services is much easier after the adoption of currency. Doesn’t this kidney exchange qualify as a barter? I am giving a kidney to someone in exchange for assuring my loved one gets a kidney too.

The person donating a kidney isn’t doing it for free. They’re doing it for something of value — a kidney for a loved one. The clearest proof of this is that the exchange is being done simultaneously — to make sure no one refuses payment after the fact. Since it’s not listed as a payment, you can’t make them do it later. So, you have to make everyone do it simultaneously — avoiding anyone backing out of the trade/barter/sale. Which is it?

Question Two: After characterizing the exchange, examine whether this makes it a wrong sort of exchange. For example, just because it’s a sale, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Maybe you think in this sort of case an exception should be permitted. If so, make an argument for it. Or make an argument for the fact that it is a sale, and so should not be permitted.

Question Three: This question relates to supererogatory acts. ‘Supererogatory’ means doing more than is morally required. You behave not just ethically, but you go above and beyond.

For example, if you are a parent, you are required to take care of your child. You are expected to provide food and shelter. To do this is not above and beyond what is required. It’s just doing what you are supposed to do; there’s nothing ‘supererogatory’ about it. But if you take in an orphan or work an extra job to support your neighbour’s family because he/she is unable to, then this is over and above what you are morally bound to do. This is beyond what you are required to do.

So, are the husbands, children and parents who donate a kidney to a family member performing a supererogatory act? Are they going beyond what is required, or just doing what they should do? After all, if you have a child who is dying of kidney disease and you are able to donate your kidney, shouldn’t you give it to him/her? Wouldn’t we look at a person who refused as some kind of monster?

And if it is not supererogatory to give a kidney to a sick child, then is it supererogatory to give a kidney to someone else in exchange for your child getting a kidney?

Who in this case performs a supererogatory act?

To be clear, an act can be a good act, even if it’s not supererogatory. Taking care of your child is a good thing; it’s just not above and beyond what a parent should do. So, are the kidney donations mentioned in the article doing something above and beyond the good or right thing to do — or simply an ethically required, good act?

My responses:

Question One:

No, I don’t think this constitutes the sale of a kidney or any organ. I have this stance because of the core idea of the exchange of resources that a sale/deal is based on, and also the idea of altruism. In all of these cases, all but the one who couldn’t produce a donor knew, compatible or not, that all of the patients had someone who is willing to donate their kidney to them. What are they getting from the transaction that is: donating a kidney to a person who needs one? In some cases, it’s a parent, in some others the child, relatives, friends and finally strangers. In all of these cases, the one donating the organ is not compensated in any way, except for maybe a soothed conscience and having their faith rewarded. As far as I understand it, the body can still reject the transplanted kidney even if the donor is a match, the likelihood of rejection is just significantly lower when you’re a match. So irrespective, the patient could still die, a calculated gamble. What they receive, is some sense of control, the lack of a guilty conscience, and gratitude from the patient.

Can you assign a monetary value to any of these, or even say it’s an equal or sufficient payment? Even aside from monetary value, what do you do with gratitude, the illusion of control and a morally satiated conscience? If anything it goes against our evolutionary biological instinct of self-preservation to give away a piece of ourselves for virtually nothing tangible or beneficial. It is metaphysically, emotionally, and morally beneficial, but we can’t measure and assign value to that. And if you can’t assign value, how do we determine how much gratitude, appreciation and recognition equates to the value of one kidney? Along these same lines, if it can be perceived as a sale, what about blood and plasma donations? What about sperm donations, are you selling a child? What about marrow? How are they compensated? Should they be compensated? Donating marrow, blood and plasma isn’t as consequential as donating an essential organ. If we do compensate them, should the families of dead donors be compensated? When do you start cutting up someone with a donor card to make some extra cash, exhuming a corpse to generate some sense of righteousness?

I don’t think it constitutes a sale cause the donors are voluntarily participating in an optional exchange program, where they trade a part of themselves for either nothing or something that doesn’t equate in value. An exchange like this is more like a transfer of property or resources, for whatever reasons, rather than giving and receiving something of equal value- which would be a sale.

Question Two:

I don’t think this is a sale, and I don’t think it’s wrong. I think it’s a fair system and, in some ways, helps build community. The helplessness of being willing to donate but unable to help because of incompatibility is a specific and awful experience- no doubt. So if there’s someone in the community who can help, who will help only because and only if you help someone else, then why not? Both donors suffer from the same problem, both patients suffer from the same problem, the end result achieved is the same, the intention is the same, and both have virtually the same odds of being accepted or rejected by the body. I think it promotes the idea of pooling your resources as a community. Someone has rice, but no water and no land, someone lives by the river but has no stake on any land and no rice, someone has acres of stretching property but no rice, nor farmers, nor any water. Put the three of them together, they can feed the village. Individually, they’re useless, but together they can achieve something, but also this requires all three to participate and contribute equally in some sense- to contribute to the full extent of what they can offer. Individually, they can’t feed any of their families or the rest of the village. Even in pairs, there is not much they can do. But only together, they can achieve something.

Question Three:

Humans are sort of unique in their childrearing tendencies in so far as human infants are born virtually defenceless and underdeveloped. Human parents provide and take care of their children a lot more and a lot longer than other animals. So the question becomes why and where do we draw the line between supererogatory and just the bare minimum? What if humans gave birth and immediately abandoned their young, either they make it, supporting Darwinism, or they don’t. What if we raised them until they were 5, and then there’s a mighty booting out of the established home or den? What if it was at 10 instead? What about 15? 20 is essentially where we are at right now, as what is considered a socially acceptable time for the offspring to go forth and explore the great beyond. When did we decide this? How did we decide this? I’m sure at all ages, the infant has some likelihood of survival, if anything, the longer they stay in a safer environment, the longer they make it. Why let/make them leave at all? If it’s a question of what is required and what is not, I’m pretty sure Mogli and Tarzan make a strong case for being abandoned at birth in a dense forest being the required minimum.

I think all of this boils down to the evolutionary function of reproduction: to ensure the survival of our own kind and to a lesser and also more social extent- the survival of our own.

So to call the act of donating a kidney to a child in need, be it your own, or someone else’s, to ensure better odds of survival of your own child, is neither a question of ethics nor a question of going above and beyond. It’s a biological dilemma of how far would you go to ensure your own blood survives. You are, by definition, older than your offspring, and therefore will not make it nearly as long as your offspring. And since the goal is not your own longevity, nor is it the requirement of a moral and ethical high ground and neither is it the satisfaction of the required minimum; it is not supererogatory- it is biological imperative.

The prompt:

The following is a column written in January 2007 by Leonard Pitts Jr., a nationally syndicated, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami-Herald. The issues it raises have not gone away.

OK, let’s say you fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul. Let’s say you’re carrying alcohol — rum from the Caribbean, a Merlot you found in Napa Valley. Let’s say you try to hail a cab while carrying said alcohol.

Good luck. You’re going to need it.

Three-quarters of the drivers serving the airport are Muslims, most from Somalia and, in recent years, many have refused to carry passengers carrying alcohol because Islam frowns on liquor. Dozens of passengers have reportedly been left stranded. Occasionally, even blind people using seeing-eye dogs have been refused passage by drivers citing Islamic teachings that the saliva of dogs is unclean.

After simmering for years, the issue has come to a boil. Last week, the local airport commission scheduled a public hearing to discuss stiffening penalties for wayward cabbies. As things now stand, a driver who refuses to carry you and your booze has to go back to the end of the cab line and wait hours for another fare. According to a report in The St. Paul Pioneer Press, new rules have been proposed that would require a 30-day suspension for a first offence and revocation of a cabby’s airport license for two years after the second.

Sounds good to me, but Khalid Elmasry disagrees. He’s the spokesman for the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. Here’s the society’s idea: Color-code the taxis according to whether the drivers accept alcohol.

Yeah, because flying is not enough of a hassle already.

“We will not see this perfect solution,” Elmasry wrote last week in USA Today, “even though it meets everyone’s needs. In an environment of fear and misunderstanding of everything Muslim, tolerance has become too much to ask.”

In a word: baloney. Out of deference to religious sensibilities, we’ll make it all-beef baloney but still: baloney.

This is not intolerance. It’s not Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, taking his oath of office on a Koran and being tortured for it by xenophobes.

Rather, it is a group of men who refuse to do their jobs because of a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. You’re entitled to your religious beliefs. You’re not entitled to require your employer or customers to go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate those beliefs.

This was a particularly dubious fight for the cabbies to pick. In the first place: If this were as critical a religious issue as they would have us believe, why aren’t Muslim cabbies all over the country refusing to haul liquor-bearing passengers?

In the second place: In the atmosphere of “fear and misunderstanding” Elmasry cites, it is foolish to needlessly invite negative attention. Why write Rush Limbaugh’s script for him?

If this all sounds familiar to you, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before. Two years ago, the news was full of Christian pharmacists who cited religious reasons for refusing to fill prescriptions for the “morning after” contraception pill or provide birth control to unmarried women. Different religions, same hubris, same eagerness to impose one’s own moral standards upon others.

And what’s next? Will the drivers refuse to serve gays or Jews or women without veils? Will they decline to ferry a customer to a bar or barbecue joint? Will we let everybody in every profession reject any customer whose race, culture, religion or moral choices offend?

No. Because that is anathema to this nation’s ideals. And the sooner certain Muslim cabbies — and Christian pharmacists — understand that, the better. To stand shivering in a Minneapolis winter waiting on a colour-coded taxi would prove “tolerance” only of religious extremists who think the world must accommodate itself to their beliefs.

You want a “perfect solution?” Fine, here it is: Muslim cabbies should do their jobs. Period.

But shouldn’t we tolerate the cabbie’s moral choice? Shouldn’t he be allowed to obey his own conscience? After all, it’s his cab. Or should we impose Western values of alcohol transport and service dogs in this case? Is that too much? Should Muslim cabbies be allowed to choose their customers?

What strikes me as particularly good is the fact that Pitts connects it to Christian pharmacists. In case you’re not familiar with that issue, some pharmacists, many in Illinois included, have asked that they be allowed to not dispense emergency contraception — sometimes referred to as the morning-after pill.

Emergency contraception is essentially a high dose of hormones that suppresses ovulation in women. It’s the same hormone found in birth control, just a higher dose. The main purpose is to keep a woman from ovulating or releasing an egg to prevent pregnancy.

After sex, sperm can actually be stored inside a woman’s body for a few days. Even if an egg is not present during intercourse, some of the stored sperm can fertilize the egg days later. So, the emergency contraceptive’s job is to keep an egg from popping out and getting fertilized. Thus, if one has a condom break or is raped or just had unprotected sex, this medication has the potential to prevent pregnancy.

Where it becomes particularly controversial is that the medication also has the potential to cause some sloughing of the uterine wall. For those unfamiliar with the implementation process of eggs, basically, the uterine wall is where a fertilized egg implants to grow into a fetus/child. Well, if that wall loses some of its surface, the single cell that is the fertilized egg may get sloughed off in the process. And since it was a fertilized egg, the fetus/child is destroyed in the process, which is why the term abortion is applied.

Advocates of the morning-after pill will say that the sloughing of the uterine wall is not an intentional consequence of the medication. The medication is only intended to suppress ovulation, and sloughing is a side effect. Further, they argue that many other medications cause sloughing of the uterine wall as a side effect, but we don’t have moral issues with prescribing them. (Just to give some further perspective on this issue, it is believed, as best as I can remember, that about 50 percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant on the uterine wall.)

So, some pharmacists who are religious and oppose abortion (and some who oppose the use of contraceptives) refuse to dispense emergency contraceptives. Pharmacists are highly regulated and must follow lots of rules and licenses because of the trust the public places in them. Because of government oversight, pharmacists have been told, Tough! If you don’t want to dispense the drug, then don’t be a pharmacist. It’s in the job description.

Suppose you are poor and have no car. The only way to get medication is to walk 10 blocks to the closest pharmacy. Maybe it’s snowed and you have to take the kids because you can’t afford a babysitter. You get to the pharmacy only to learn that the medication you want is not available because your pharmacist has ethical objections, and you’ll need to walk another 10 blocks and hope that the pharmacist does sell it. Such situations are exactly why such rules exist.

However, on the other hand, some say that one shouldn’t have to choose between a job and personal ethics. What does it matter if someone has to wait for another cab or go to another pharmacy? Why should one person have to suppress his/her conscience to make another’s life a little more convenient?

Here is another sort of example. An LLCC student a few semesters back worked at a family restaurant (one known for video games kids can play after dinner). This family restaurant serves beer. Parents, it seems, can enjoy a beer while the kids play. The moral issue arises in that the LLCC student observed clearly pregnant women ordering beer. The negative effects

Suppose you’re the waiter and the pregnant diner talks about when she’s due, then says, “Give me a beer.”

Do you serve her? The restaurant policy is that you must. The company doesn’t discriminate against pregnant women. Perhaps a different server takes the beer to the pregnant diner, but the restaurant cannot refuse her the beer. She must be served.

Is this situation different from the cabbie and pharmacist? Should a waiter be allowed to make moral exceptions to protect the fetus? What if you’re a pregnant woman who really wants a drink? Isn’t it your body, your choice? Perhaps the woman is going to have an abortion later that day and wants a drink to calm her nerves. Who knows? As long as it’s legal, who are you to impose your morals? Who are you to refuse?

My response:

I think each of these three cases are quite similar and part of the same problem, and the bottom line is, that other people are not compelled to follow the beliefs of your religion, and neither should they be.

The three cases here are, a bartender refusing to serve alcohol to a pregnant woman, a Muslim cab driver refusing to fare any passenger carrying alcohol, and a Christian pharmacist refusing to sell emergency contraceptives to a customer. All three of these situations have two subjects, haggling over one product, and in all three scenarios, one subject refuses to sell said product to the other subject because of personal reasons.

I think most religions draw lines in the sand about what is considered, good, clean, lawful, righteous, sinful, and so on. Islamic culture considers pigs unclean while Western culture inhales copious amounts of bacon. On the other hand, while there is no explicit rule against consuming pork, the cow is considered holy and a figure of reverence in Indian culture, while again, western culture remains indifferent. So it’s easy to see there are rules everywhere, for each culture, religion, and peoples, rules that while make sense to one set of people, do not at all to others. Cultural or religious relativism.

So the question becomes if we’re going to be accommodating people’s preferences based on culture and religion, where do we stop? What happens when a hardcore, anti-genetically modified crops pharmacist refuses to provide you with insulin or some other biopharmaceutical? What happens when a pharmacist refuses to sell the drugs used for execution during the death penalty based on his principles? Can a Muslim working at a barbecue restaurant tell customers they can’t order pork cause it’s against his religious beliefs?

The questions of what we can/should accommodate, and where we draw the line between lifestyle choices that people make and those very choices affecting the work are infinite. Should a vegan waiter be allowed to refuse to sell a steak? Should a school biology teacher be allowed to opt out of the entirety of the evolution section if they don't believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution?

I remember reading somewhere that in Canada, Australia, and I’m sure in other countries too although I’m not sure which ones, pharmacists can refuse but have to find the patient alternate care, i.e; another pharmacy that will dispense within the same community, and if there is no other option they have to sell to the customer. While this is the optimum solution, for all three cases, finding an alternate place/person who will sell you what you want, I do think this overcomplicates things. Just like the colour-coded cabs solution, first, we have cabs of Muslim cabbies who refuse to transport dogs and/or alcohol, then we’ll have a subsection for Hindus who don’t want to transport people who eat beef, then we’ll have a subsection for people who aren’t vaccinated, and so on. At the end of this, a simple commodity becomes an extremely and unnecessarily complex industry. If a job description is X, then you should be willing and able to perform job X, irrespective. YOU signed on for this.

Additionally, I remember reading somewhere that most if not some bars, have a policy where they cannot refuse alcohol to pregnant women as the bar can be sued for discrimination based on pregnancy. In this situation, even if the pregnant woman is refused service, she can ask another bartender, go to a different bar, or skip the bar entirely and buy a bottle from Walmart. Another question that arises is, what if she looks pregnant, but isn’t? What if she is pregnant, but lies and says she isn’t? How do you assign responsibility? Does it come down to the principle of the fact or simply the surface-level rule and extend to only as far as you are allowed plausible deniability? The specifics are endless.

In the same way, you can’t refuse to sell cigarettes to a person just because you feel like it’s bad for their health, or refuse to sell candy to a diabetic, it’s their choice and unless it’s criminalized, they’ll still find a way around it, and someone refusing in the grounds of their personal beliefs just complicates things unnecessarily.

Ultimately I think, you shouldn’t join a specific field if your religion will obstruct your performance in it. That’s a choice you made and did to and for yourself, not to the customer or the patient.

I thought the prompts were pretty good and inspired a lot of thought and abstraction from me. So I figured I’d put some of these out there cause good writing is good writing.

Okay so here’s the prompt, which is obviously about “Should schools give out contraceptives?”

The prompt:

For those who hold the first position — that it’s ridiculous for schools to give out contraceptives — the argument usually unfolds that having condoms will make teens more likely to have sexual intercourse. It is like handing out a license and telling students to go for it. As a result, the rates of sexual activity increase. While the sex may be safer, even protected sex has risks and the greater numbers having sex will counterbalance the supposed decrease in pregnancies and disease. Furthermore, it will expose more teens to the psychological and emotional consequences of sexual activity. Many of these children are not ready for sex, and this will only pressure them to have it, which could cause significant emotional harm.

The other side of the argument says that teens are no more likely to have sex if you give them a condom. If a teen is going to have sex, they will have it whether you provide them with a condom or not. The availability and education on protection will just make them more likely to have safe sex when they do. Furthermore, the benefits of safer sex (decreased pregnancies and disease) justify it. Even if a few more teens were to have sex, the fact that it is safer will not be overwhelmed by an increase.

I like this moral dilemma because often people think these two sides come at this argument with contrary moral perspectives. On the one side, we have the abstinence camp that wants to keep all teens chaste. On the other is the side that’s fine with teen sex, and they want to give them the tools to be safe.

Well, to me, these aren’t such contrary positions. Ask either side, and they will say that there are emotional and physical issues with teens having sexual intercourse. Secondly, ask both sides, and they will say that pregnancy and disease are bad and should be prevented. Ask both sides, and they would argue that they don’t want to increase the number of teens engaging in intercourse; both would likely seek to decrease the number.

The real issue is: Does giving condoms and teaching about contraception increase the number of teens having sexual intercourse? If so, how much? Furthermore, if it does go up, are a few more teens having sex worth fewer teens getting herpes or becoming pregnant? We often so focus on all the rhetoric; that we don’t get to this core part of the issue. It’s not so much a moral issue. It’s a factual issue. The factual issue is — what are the real-world implications to sexual education? How do teens react? And those questions can be answered with some research.

In the end, both sides may get to a moral disagreement. One side might say less disease isn’t worth one more teen having sex as a teen, while the other might be OK with small increases in sexual activity for big drops in disease and pregnancy. That may yield a moral dilemma: What increase in sexual activity is worth what decrease in disease and pregnancy?

Interestingly, research has shown that teens who are given condoms along with education on contraceptives (not just being given contraceptives) are actually less likely to have sex than teens who are not given education and contraceptives. The interesting thing is that if you tell teens about all the problems with having sex and you give them a condom and tell them how important it is to avoid disease and pregnancy — it scares them into actually having less sex.

Here’s the issue: Should schools give out contraceptives? Should they provide sex education (abstinence-only or contraceptive education)? Or do nothing? Why? If they give out contraceptives, do you think teens will be more likely to engage in sexual activity? If so, how many more? Will that be worth the benefit of less sexually transmitted disease and less teen pregnancy?

My response:

This debate is primarily about two things: information and the tools to help you act on this information. The information here is sex ed and the tools to help you act on it being contraceptives.

The thing about teenagers, at least the way I see it having been one myself, is that teenagers/young adults will always find a way to do what they want. And their parents or teachers telling them no will make them commit harder. So, considering raging hormones, peer pressure, social expectations and just morbid curiosity, they are going to get down to do the dirty one way or another. Their very existence is a product of a billion years of the very sexual success they’re chasing at that moment. So essentially we’re pitting a firm “Abstain from sex, say no” from the public school system vs the sum total of millions of years of evolutionary biology. Abstinence is a poor countermeasure.

If the sole determining factor that kept someone from having sex is that they didn’t have access to contraception, then it’s really only a matter of time before they either get some or just have sex without it.

Along the same lines of ‘handing out a license and telling students to go for it’, let’s say that in tandem with a license, the driver of a motorcycle must wear a helmet. Now, considering the stigma surrounding purchasing contraceptives, imagine this emphasis on the importance of helmets was present but the system demanded that you go out of your way and put yourself outside of a very clear comfort zone to get your helmet.

If helmets were so important, why would the system make it so hard for us to get one? How likely is it that you’re going to go out of your way you’re not entirely convinced you even need? On the other hand, if the system is on every street corner handing out helmets for free, no questions asked, how likely is it for the populace to genuinely believe that helmets really are important and paramount to our safety? You can preach the importance of safety but your action on it matters more.

As a teenager, you already have your metaphorical license to go drive around on your bike by 1. Hitting puberty 2. Just knowing you can drive a bike now. So you’ll either go out of your way to get a helmet, something that society stigmatizes as well, or you’ll drive without one. Either way, you’re driving that bike. Now it’s just about how easy are you going to make it for him/her to drive their bike safely.

In this analogy, having a license is the sex ed that people go through to understand the complexities of driving a bike. Yes, you can just hop on one, push and wheel yourself out of the garage and hope and pray you don’t crash and die, or you can go get a license, and learn how to drive properly, along with the consequences. After your license, you should get your helmet to drive safely, whose importance you understand now that you’ve been educated on the subject. And its ease of access would ensure you never drive without a helmet as well.

Additionally, if anything, learning about anatomy, the consequences and complexities of pregnancy, and the burdens of parenting could scare any teenager into not having sex until much later. Information is important, and giving people the tools to make better choices with the information goes in tandem. After all, parents who don’t educate their kids on sex are called grandparents.

I took a bunch of writing classes recently, and while they were not creative writing classes, I think they helped me understand better that the best writing is honest. But with true honesty comes a vulnerability that I’m scared of, and to be honest is something that I think most people aren’t ready for, despite what they might think.

My earliest interaction with this idea was during my first creative writing class at UIUC. Feels like a lifetime ago, and for the first time, it was a lifetime ago. I was reading the work of someone in the peer review group the class was structured around. His work spoke to me with a depth I had never experienced for myself, I could hear him narrating as I read. He was a senior, a photography major, and towered over the rest of us- the professor included. His was peppered with freckles, the orange frizz resting on top in curly bunches, extending downward and blending with this rugged beard. Despite his bearish appearance and aura, he resonated with a deep sense of calm, intentionality, and control. It wasn’t like he was holding back a flood of personality, he was simply, composed and wistful. Awaiting perpetually.

The story he wrote, was about a three-day trek on a trail termed “Four Pass Loop” that involved a first-time mountaineer, consequently our main character, and his longtime friend, our hardened- intentionally vague- mentor figure who was a regular, journeying together through these hills. While I wasn’t able to pinpoint exactly why the story astounded me so much at the time, in retrospect, I can. I was so impressed because the story felt real, it felt honest, tangible, and lived in almost.

I could see him(my peer and the author of the piece) in the main character as he described the ‘mountain bug’, a sort of illness, that people find themselves infected with after their first trip in the mountains that draws them back to the quiet melancholy of adventure. I’m sure he was taking points for his personal experiences of the first time to expound on the truth of the situation and the experience, but even though I could see him in the story, I saw myself too. There was space for the character AND space for myself to identify with the character. I identified with the main character experiencing many things for the first time, as they were once things I had experienced too.

Furthermore, I could also see him in the character of the experienced, rugged friend, someone who he must have felt a lot closer to now since he had caught the bug himself and had probably accumulated years of experience. I could see the truth in how he described the exhaustion, the difference between the ascent and the descent, the appreciation and awe for the green that had swallowed his two characters, and the gratitude in the water and food.

Compared to his Renaissance painting of a story, the story I had turned in was a blurry picture taken on a digital camera that hadn’t been used since 2006 that you found in your drawer after you came back from college one summer. It was like reading a description of the same puddle by two different people. One was a mystical, swirly, portal to another dimension, clear and turquoise, bubbling with energy and possibility, inviting you to a different world; while the other was an oily, murky, stagnated pool of filth.

My story felt shallow because it felt inauthentic, it lacked the depth of a truth that I believed and wished to express through my story. It was merely a series of events that transpired, riddled with fun moments. There was a purpose, a direction, an intention I had failed to consider.

After this revelation, the next story I turned in was something deeply personal that I pulled from the depths of my repressed thoughts. It was real, it was raw. I sparked a lot of heated discussion within the peer group and with the rest of the class. It was an indescribable feeling, but with it also came the inescapable feeling that everyone had read it now knew me to a capacity I wasn’t ready for. Like sure I’d found the answer to bringing the sauce to my work: I just gotta be honest- but Jesus, am I scared. I’m scared to put out the full depth of what I feel because it’s hard to encapsulate emotions without context, and for all the “nonchalant” energy I bring, I still do not wish to air out my or anyone’s dirty laundry just to make a point or paint a picture. And sometimes honesty doesn’t even cut it, cause I can only be as honest in my work as honest as I am to myself. What happens when I’m so honest that I don’t like what I see? How do I walk the line between relatable and novel, familiar yet original, intentional, yet vague, personal yet universally experienced?

Part of me believes it's because I can’t tell the difference between what I believe and what makes sense. That’s because writing isn’t just staining a page with ink in so far as reading isn’t just hallucinating while you stare at a series of symbols. Writing is like this intellectual adventure that you invite the reader on. A journey where you explore your perspective on the matter, a perspective that is shaped by your morals, values, experiences, culture, and upbringing, all of which help build a unique reading experience. It's a slice, a narrow path into my psyche.

So sometimes when I write, I find myself stuck in circular patterns of thought as I try to rationalise, intellectualize and just empathize with a single thought. I write like I think, but with a speed limit, and I think like I argue, which is to take every assumption, break it down and dissect it. You start with an assumption, a fact, a statement, a feeling, you break down the subject, the object, how it makes you feel, how it might make them feel, how you would feel if you were them, how they would feel if they were you. I see things from a new light, but doesn’t invalidate what I think, see or feel, so I’m now stuck with two different feelings and two different justifications for the same thing. I find myself falling down this spiral of concentric thinking often, and while I can pull myself out pretty often, sometimes I can’t. I free fall for days, trying to rationalize and intellectualize every single detail of what happened and what people experienced.

I’m so caught up with trying to explain things to myself, to rationalize everything that I just completely fail to simply feel what I am feeling. And it's a sad feeling to feel ashamed about what you’re feeling, or just to feel stuck, unable to move forward or backwards in what you’re experiencing. Not everything you feel isn't meant to make sense, we’re meant to feel them, not intellectualize them. That took me a while to accept. The full weight of it hit me when a dear friend, someone who I often look up to, said I had spent too long empathizing with everyone else and needed to empathise with myself first.

I believe, that while we live unique lives, the things we feel are largely universal. Feelings like loss, grief, rage, betrayal, joy, release, shame, and pity- they’re all things we experience- but in a variety of contexts. The pain of the things unsaid when someone has passed away and the pain of the things left unsaid when you simply aren’t speaking, are so similar, yet worlds apart.

Sometimes I read what I’ve written and I’m scared you’ll see too much of who I am, and that you won’t like it. Twitter has been a testament to that. Even this piece, started out as a sort of follow-up, added context, behind the scenes of my headspace, where I’m coming from, for the last piece I put out. Or maybe you’ll see the wrong thing and there will be no coming back for me. But on the other side lies the possibility that you will see what I show you, and you’ll see a part of yourself. You’ll see a weight that you’ve felt hanging over you for years for the first time as clear as day, that indescribable feeling will crystalize with a blinding clarity in front of your eyes. The thrills of being seen.

With each passing day, it gets easier, but the weight of the things unsaid remain an anchor. Right now, I’m trying to balance a fourteen-story building that I managed to build on my torso with my self-worth as the foundation. One false move the entire thing comes crumbling down. I see a near future, where I’m chained to the burden of the weight like a cursed ring that never leaves my neck. Small but dense, unresolved, like so many other things.

The things you said and the words you sang, plague this waking nightmare I find myself in, where I stumble, unable to unhear your voice, and unable to say anything back. My thoughts fail to gather every time, as there is no place to start and nothing to tie a neat bow around to call an end.

Feels like every day I wake up to find that you’ve somehow cut out a piece of my memory of you. Every night I find that I can’t even grieve what I lost because I know you’re out there ashamed of the version of you that will live forever in my head. You and your accursed magic rip at my every thought of you, like trying to catch a cloud with my hands. I feel you miles away, on your jagged, black, and lonely rock, writhing in shame at the thought of my name. Your skin- forever burnt with my presence- a sight you wish to escape.

Even this, is a message in a bottle, thrown out to sea, guided by nothing but fate and stormwinds. And I am but a fool, shipwrecked again, having tried to conquer the seas with only half a boat. And I say to my crew that the bottle will surely find someone, that someone will hear of our peril and come to our aid, but I lie to them as I have lied to myself for so long. I hope against hope that this message reaches anyone, but really, I wish for only one pair of eyes to greet these words. I am the captain of my ship, trying to reach the siren who sunk it.

I ask myself why, and a rush of answers bubble to the surface, all echoes of things I’ve heard, and things I tell myself, and all of it…makes sense, but not one, do I believe. I want to ask you, why you burnt my ship down, for the second time, for the third time, for the hundredth time. Was your isle of black rock amid the shipless seas where you wanted to remain? Time and time again, did I pull you out of waters you wished not to be fished out of?

In the quiet hours, when I can no longer keep my thoughts at bay, I question myself. Why did I let you, a siren, on my ship? Did I dream a dream of you walking the shores, or was it a wish you whispered to me while I slept? Did I just want to do what no sailor had done before? or was I simply like all those who came before me, blinded by my own desire? I muse over my thoughts and intentions like a madman unable to decide why he wished for what he wished.

Yet, I find myself trying to swim more like you more often than I should, see the currents in the water, see the home in a slice of dark rock out at sea. I see the life in the purple coral, and water orchids, the undisturbed peace of world beneath. I try to see sailors as you might see them, conquerors flying in their mighty ships of wood and steel. The arrogance of sailors as they mow down everything you hold sacred in their divine conquest. Their bloody ships bringing rot to your seas, their pointless wars bringing death to your shores. I see that peace- now broken. An innocence destroyed. A part of you, destroyed. When called to sea, called to war, a part of you, is lost forever. I see the filth you see in them, and I see why you drag them to their watery end. I feel the rage you likely felt at their sight…at the sight of me. I see you writhe again at my touch, and this time, I writhe too. I was a fool led by my own lie. My rage burns to hate, and hate to sorrow as I’m marooned again, alone on an island of hollows; with only myself left to conquer.

OKAY, I won't leave with NO context, BUT only a little. I’m writing this like a sailor trying to contact the very siren who burnt down his ship. He’s trying to reach the very thing that ruined him, but he can’t understand why. It's filled with confusion, the loss of direction and purpose, anger, loss, uncertainty, the need for forgiveness, delusion, more confusion, shame, self-hate and so much more. Song to the Siren was also a huge inspiration for this. The Rose Betts cover that I heard first in the Synder Cut of Justice League made me cry one time.

The sailor feels stuck and lost. He’s a sailor, she’s a siren. Sure, for a moment it felt real, when she sang he believed anything was possible. But now that he’s shipwrecked, naturally, he searches for truth within the illusion. He wants to know some part of it was real, that it wasn’t all for nothing. He wants answers but can have none, but also because there are none, he knows this but doesn’t want to accept it. And the answer is: he’s a sailor, she’s a siren, and they may want to swim together and walk the harbour together, but her waters only serve to drown and his shores only serve to burn.

But still, in delusion or hope, consumed by madness or in the face of cosmic absurdity, he writes a letter, in an attempt to purge. To scream into the sea, to release, knowing it most definitely will be swallowed by the sea. But secretly, he still hopes against hope, that it will reach her, against his better judgement, against all the odds, against all sense of logic. He’s ashamed, he's torn, he's confused and lost. His ship is broken, his crew is scattered, they claim he’s mad, and he agrees. But still, his life falls apart around him and he thinks of her.

Now, while I can’t speak for everyone, for me personally, what the Bible is to devout Catholics, The Lord of the Rings is for me as a fantasy writer and fanatic. The book is a gigantic, soul-sucking journey into middle earth. And don’t get me wrong, the book is quite insane, filled to the brim with detail, lore and myth that would take a good chunk of your life and sanity to fully absorb- it's not a casual read. But, as a young, impressionable child and budding fantasy escapist, my first exposure to Middle Earth came from the acclaimed adaptation by Peter Jackson.

Also warning, this is gonna contain heavy spoilers for everything Lord of the Rings related. Honestly, if you haven’t watched/ read it at this point, you’re really, REALLY missing out.

While I can go on and on about how the trilogy was decades ahead in terms of scoring, CGI, pacing, direction, and so much more considering Return of the King won seventeen out of thirty Academy Award nominations and a whopping eleven Oscars; there are two specific scenes that get me every time I rewatch it.

The first is the scene at Mt. Doom, where Frodo and Sam struggle against the waves of intense heat, dehydration, starvation, and general disillusionment in the hope of success in the quest they had set out to complete. Frodo, having carried his burden around his neck for the better part of a year is fighting a losing battle against the eroding evil of the one ring, which is nearing the height of its power as they reach Sammath Naur: where it was forged by the Dark Lord Sauron. Nothing stands between his frail, failing body and the wheel of fire.

Sam, the faithful friend, who ascended the winding stairs of Cirith Ungol twice, faced Shelob the giant spider alone and saved Frodo’s ass multiple times looks down at him. Sam asks him if he can remember the green fields of the shire, the strawberries with cream, thirsting over the thought of Rosie Cotton dancing. Frodo says no, his eyes pale and empty, shaking with fear and exhaustion of both the mind and the body.

This is the moment, that gets me. Sam looks at his friend, and with unbreaking grit that gives me goosebumps, and cries out loud:

“Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. Come on, Mr Frodo. I can’t carry it for you. But I can carry you.”

Summoning inhumane strength, the little Hobbit heaves Frodo onto his back and proceeds to scale the scalding slopes of black rock.

To this day. TO THIS VERY DAY. This scene has a grip on me like no other. While obviously, a mixture of the amazing acting and the absolute bonkers scoring goes a long way, I’ve been thinking a lot about why this scene gets me and a lot of other people right in the feels. This little thought, a rogue echo of a question, led me down a rabbit hole; questioning the nature of good and evil, and the philosophy and ideas Tolkien wove into his grand epic.

In the grand scheme of Tolkien’s stories in Arda, (the world in which Middle Earth exists) the Lord of the Rings is a small segment of a vivid, spanning history. Before we had the Lord of the Rings, we had the Hobbit, where Bilbo first finds the ring in the goblin tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. Before the Hobbit, we had the first war of the ring, where the ring was cut from Sauron’s finger and the Dark Lord was believed to have been vanquished- and also where I believe Amazon’s Rings of Power will conclude.

Even before that, we had a wholly different, and significantly stronger and menacing Dark Lord: Morgoth, formerly known as Melkor. What came with Morgoth were tales and wars that spanned centuries as the Elves, Men and Dwarves fought for the Silmarils- three gems of immense beauty that beheld some of the last remaining light of the two trees. We had stories like the Silmarillion, Children of Hurin( that story was so goddamn sad), Beren and Lúthien and so much more.

But through all the countless, thousands of stories, myths and wars that Tolkien breathed into this world, the Lord of the Rings sticks out. And I think that’s because the story highlighted Tolkien’s views on good and evil more than the rest.

Most of Tolkien’s other stories in Middle Earth before the Lord of the Rings have stories of your traditional paragon of hope, love, and justice running around doing the hero’s deed of opposing evil and fighting the good fight. But when it comes to the Lord of the Rings, in the heart of Mt. Doom as Frodo dangles the ring over the fires- our hero, our protagonist, the one who resisted the evil and temptation of the ring thus far…fails.

If you look at most stories and their general structure, at the epic climax, there’s usually two battles: the primary conflict and the secondary conflict. The primary conflict is the internal battle, the struggle within. The secondary conflict is the externalized battle- quite often a literal, physical, externalized battle. Most stories are written so that our protagonist spends the entirety of the story struggling against the antagonist and with whatever their incomplete character arc is. And eventually, the story ends with both conflicts concluding in parallel.

For example, take Star Wars. In the original trilogy, that is episodes IV, V, and VI, the secondary struggle is about saving the galaxy from the oppressive rule of the Empire, the Sith, The Dark Side, Palpatine and Vader. And the primary conflict is an internal one for Luke about his identity, his connection to the Dark Side through his father, Darth Vader (whoops, spoilers?) and whether he can vanquish Palpatine and the Empire without giving in to his hate and rage. At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke manages to defeat Palpatine, save the galaxy, and also not give in to the Dark Side, redeeming his father, Anakin, in some sense, and bringing some semblance of calm to his identity.

As I said, usually these two conflicts work in tandem. Even in Avatar, the Last Airbender (NOT THE BLUE MONKEY ONE, STOP), Aang manages to stop the Fire Lord without compromising his values as he doesn’t want to take a life- which he had been struggling with for a while. At the end of most stories, the protagonist wins BOTH. But sometimes, they win one and lose the other.

For this example, take The Dark Knight (maybe one day I’ll write a piece on this). The secondary conflict toward the end is whether the city will dissolve into pandemonium like the Joker says it will, whether Batman will save the hostages in the building and Jim Gordon’s family that Two-Face has taken hostage. On the other end, the primary conflict is whether Bruce Wayne can hang up the cape, if he can safely retire the Batman, knowing that the city will not fall into crime once again. Bruce struggles throughout the movie on whether the Batman is truly a symbol for good, if he’s had a positive impact in Gotham, and if he can actually have a normal life outside of beating criminals into a catatonic state under the cover of darkness.

But at the end of the movie, he wins the secondary conflict. He saves all the hostages, doesn’t harm any of the cops, and saves Gordon’s family. But he loses the primary conflict because now, the Batman must change, he will be hunted, and persecuted — so that Harvey Dent’s work can be seen through- so the city doesn’t fall into chaos. The Batman, as a symbol, is ruined and corrupted. Harvey Dent, who Bruce saw as a way out of his double life as the Batman and an ideal for the man who could truly save Gotham in a way he never could, falls. Not to mention Rachel is dead, who he viewed as his one chance at love. Batman, seeing this, acknowledges his loss and decides that he will not fail Gotham and takes the blame for the crime. And so, he withdraws into a secluded, depressing lifestyle, having basically given up, and the Batman is forever changed- all so that the city can be saved.

Another good example would be Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. The primary conflict for Obi-wan is about saving Anakin from turning to the Dark side and trying to ensure the Jedi survive- that hope survives. On the other hand, the secondary conflict is about the Senate being controlled by the Sith and trying to take over the galaxy and whatnot. But toward the end of the movie, although Obi-wan defeats Anakin, he fails to save him from the Dark Side, the galaxy is taken over by the Empire but he manages to save Luke and Leia.

In the Lord of the Rings, the secondary battle is the battle between Frodo and Gollum as they wrestle in the swirling heat of the crack of doom. The primary conflict is Frodo’s internal struggle of trying to resist the evil of the ring once in for all.

But at this moment, Frodo fails both. As they wrestle at the precipice of the volcano, Gollum bites into Frodo’s finger, ripping it off whole and seizing it for himself. Seeing this, greed and rage fill his heart as he launches himself at Gollum- he doesn’t want Gollum to have the ring- the ring is his! He loses the fight, and he gives in to the temptation of the ring.

So why did Tolkien write it this way? Why didn’t he make it so like :

Frodo stares longingly at the ring, now at the height of its power at the source of its inception. The whispers of Quenya ring in his ears- he wants to keep it; it is his after all. But then with one great big surge of will and good he musters from the depths of his heart, he yeets it into the molten lava far below. The end. Everyone look at Frodo and applaud the best of us all. Moral of the story- everyone should be good and pure like Frodo and resist evil at all moments.

Why didn’t Tolkien make our protagonist the embodiment of things we should strive to be?

I think this is because of Tolkien’s views on the nature of good and evil.

As I understand it, Tolkien’s work was never about great battles or just flat-out resisting doing bad things no matter the circumstances. Game of Thrones for one, tackles this conversation on good versus evil by taking a more subjective stance. In Martin’s world, there is no definitive evil. Everyone has an agenda, everyone thinks they’re the good guys in their own stories- no one is out here just mowing down fields of men because:

“EVIL, DEATH, MURDER, YESSS I LOVE THISSS”

Sure. you could make an argument that the Night King is without a doubt, the big, bad, evil entity in the story. But considering how the books aren’t actually over, I’m sure Martin will go on to reveal who the Night King is and what his true motivations are.

The take is there is no objective evil, just people with different ideologies coming into conflict with each other.

I believe, Lord of the Rings differs from this because Tolkien flat out has an objective good and evil side. The Dark Lord Sauron is the big bad, and everything associated with him is death, chaos, blackness and so on, whereas the men of the west, the elves, Gandalf and the Hobbits are the good guys. He doesn’t leave too much room for moral ambiguity where we learn that Sauron is just a misunderstood extremist anti-hero. That way when I say things like “the evil of the one ring” it’s a far more vague, impressionist idea of evil. There’s no agenda nor too much discernable logic to it. It’s a general, “it makes you a bad person and makes you do bad things”- sorta evil.

Tolkien, being a catholic, viewed evil as an inherent part of man. The original sin is said to have wounded human nature, leaving our tendency for evil something that is ingrained in our essence, etched in our souls. The very nature of man was to be susceptible to evil. Not to say that man is inherently evil but more that everyone had the potential for it. The idea was that evil is all corrupting, something that NO ONE can ALWAYS resist. And quite frankly, I agree with that. Yeah, there are tons of stories of where the good guy stays morally good the whole way through but how many times have you done something stupid, wrong, morally questionable or, for a lack of a better word- evil? It’s not that you ARE evil, but more that it is in our very nature to falter and sometimes fail. To fall short of some insane idea of what it is to be good.

Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of good reasons why people do the bad things they do, but that doesn’t make it any less bad. And even if you have a justifiable reason for why you did something that is generally considered bad, I doubt you can tell me that you had a good reason for EVERYTHING you’ve ever done. Sometimes we just are angry, or vengeful, want to see the other person hurt as much as you are, selfish, jealous- the list goes on. Sometimes the burden is too great, sometimes our moral limits are stretched far too thin, and the pain too immense. It’s natural, it’s normal, it's human.

It’s through this idea, that Frodo fails. Frodo, a small humble hobbit who so selflessly volunteers and takes it upon himself to destroy the ring. Frodo, who carried it through hell and high water, who endured and never gave in to the ring for so long where so many others failed. Frodo, who along with Sam, raw dogged his entire journey across Middle Earth by literally just walking. And he fails right at the precipice of the end of his quest. It was the ONE thing he had set out to do, and yet he still fails.

Frodo fails because at that moment, trying to resist the ring was like trying to resist his very nature, a part of himself. And in a way, I believe anyone, at that moment, would have failed to destroy to ring. Be it Aragorn, Gandalf, your 9th-grade chemistry teacher, or even Gandhi. I believe, at the height of its power within Mt Doom, the lure of the one ring would have claimed everyone.

But it’s also here that Tolkien gives us his take on the nature of good. If evil is all corrupting, if it is something that cannot be carved out, cannot be separated from us- then good cannot always triumph over evil. The forces of good do not always triumph over the forces of evil. Good cannot ALWAYS defeat evil.

But, evil always defeats itself.

At the end of the Second Age, Sauron is defeated in the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men united under Gil-galad and Elendil( Isildur’s father). Elendil is killed, but Isildur cuts Sauron’s finger, causing him to lose the ring and therefore everyone believes he’s defeated. Elrond then leads Isildur to Mt Doom so he can yeet the ring into the fire and seal the deal. But here Isildur gives in to the temptation of the ring and takes it for himself. Sauron, the evil, the power of the ring, survives then because men could not resist the pull of the ring. And later, at the end of the Lord of the Rings, the one ring is destroyed because man cannot resist the evil of the ring.

If the ring had not driven Gollum to such madness to follow Sam and Frodo all the way to Mt Doom, then Frodo, consumed by the ring would have taken it for himself and left. But it is because Gollum is so far gone that he fights Frodo tooth and nail at the climax. And it is also because Frodo has succumbed to the ring that they wrestle for their precious, and ultimately tip off the edge into the fires where Gollum and the ring meet their end.

So, yes, evil is self-defeating. The forces that led to the ring surviving the first defeat of Sauron, are the very forces that lead it from Isildur’s hands to Gollum, to Bilbo, to Frodo and all the way back to Mt. Doom. Because to Tolkien, evil was a selfish force. It’s all about me, myself, my pain, what I want, how I was wronged, and how I can be stronger. Greed, hatred, jealousy, and selfishness, they’re all driven by a need to take and keep taking.

But on the other hand- if evil is self-defeating- does that mean we should just sit on our asses and do nothing? I mean, it will eventually self-destruct in some convenient way, right?

Right?

I believe the answer to this question, Tolkien gives us in the form of the very nature of our protagonists: The Hobbits.

There’s a reason the story is told from the perspectives of the Hobbits and why it could not have been anyone else to be the focal points of the story. The Hobbits are, in one way or another, a stand in for our perspective. If you think about it, Tolkien made the unique choice of having all these amazing races like the Elves, Ents, Men, Orcs, Dwarves and so many more but he chose to make the protagonist a Hobbit. Because most fantasy stories where you have many races, the protagonist is human, or atleast we’re meant to identify with them for their human characteristics. And for the most bit, Hobbits are very much like humans, they’re just smaller and tamer folk. So why even have the concept of Hobbits? Why not just have the protagonist be a dude?

Our classic hero’s arc is often about a dramatic rise to power or status, embracing some grand destiny and primarily: leading the forces of good in some grandiose battle. And we do still have that hero’s arc in for Aragorn. He has the generic arc of reclaiming the throne, the grand destiny of uniting Arnor and Gondor after some 3000 years, wielding the legendary, super iconic blade, marrying the immortal 2600-year-old Elf princess and whatnot- but he’s still the secondary protagonist. Our primary protagonist is Frodo without a doubt. And as a fantasy story, the protagonist is who we’re most likely meant to identify with. We’re meant to feel what they’re feeling, and see things the way they see them.

And in a broader sense, fantasy is about living out your wildest dreams. It’s about taking that feeling of slaying a dragon, defeating the bad guy, and translating it into a book or video game or movie. Epiphanies feel like you’re pulling a sword out of a rock. When you’re in the zone about to shoot a three-pointer- it feels like you’re connecting to the force. That one video of that kid literally backflipping during a game of dodgeball feels like you’re bending the Matrix.

Down that same line of logic, when you’re surrounded by something that makes you afraid, when you step outside of your comfort zones, when you’re lost and afraid- you feel small. Which is a core part of the Hobbit experience- and the experience Tolkien wants us as readers to witness as the primary plotline. Right off the bat, when four hobbits leave the Shire- which is meant to be a place of comfort, familiarity, and safety, they must constantly be helped, saved and carried.

Moreover, Hobbit culture and lifestyle is very laid back. They’re not at the club pounding shots, doing coke, making hustle culture videos on YouTube, pumping crypto- they’re just kinda chilling in their hole in the ground and just sitting around having a merry time. So, by definition, they’re not beings who are up and about, trying to achieve things and obtain some form of greatness and power. They’re small, calm, and non-violent folk.

And let’s be honest, most arcs start out with our hero being relatively weak, powerless, and inexperienced and therefore quests to gain said experience and power to avenge some wrong or actualize their destiny. Point being: our hero generally starts out weak and gets stronger as they progress through the story.

But Hobbits? They’re not destined for greatness. They have no secret hidden superpower. They have no ambition for power- and they don’t really change over the course of the story. They start out small, weak and afraid and toward the end, they are still small, weak and afraid.

So, then the question becomes:

What is the point of having a protagonist that has no inherent capacity for power or growth into power? Or for that matter, they don’t even have the unique ability to resist evil indefinitely. Tolkien’s literally screaming at us:

“They’re not great heroes or really special in any way. They’re just small, regular, chill folk.”

I think that was the whole point of having a Hobbit for a protagonist. Because, coming back to my main point, Tolkien’s idea of good and evil and the struggle to overcome evil was never about epic battles. It was never about displaying moments of great skill in the heat of battle, about overcoming insurmountable evil by beating it to a pulp with raw power.

*Cut to Legolas backflipping over 20 Orcs while shooting a volley of arrows.*

To Tolkien, the greatest battle of good vs evil was a battle that took place in all of our hearts.

The tension of the entire book was about people giving into the desire for power that the one ring preyed on. Boromir falls prey to it when he tries to take the ring from Frodo and is seen thirsting over it several times. Gollum is entirely warped by the desire for the ring. Even Bilbo is warped by the ring to some measure which we see in the beginning when he is hesitant to leave the ring behind and also in Rivendell when he turns into crackhouse Bilbo for a moment. Gandalf too is hyperaware of how he would wish to do good with the ring but however pure his intentions are, he too would eventually give in to the desire for more power that the one ring would fester.

Even Galadriel, who is over 8000 years old by the time we meet her in Lothlorien in the Lord of the Rings, is tempted by the ring. The tension is building up to this point where it feels like the only way Sauron will be finally defeated is that someone has to just straight up, and resist the draw of the ring. Just absolutely cockblock it in its entirety- but that never happens because eventually- sooner or later, EVERYONE falls prey to the one ring.

But there’s something else we’re missing.

In the Hobbit, namely the movie, there is a moment when Bilbo, with a blade right at the throat of the unsuspecting Gollum, contemplates killing Gollum. After all, who would know? But he doesn’t, because for a moment all he sees is a sad, lonely creature, warped by the ring. Much later, in the two towers, when Frodo and Sam are met with Faramir by the Forbidden pool, Faramir presents Frodo with the choice to end Gollum’s life then and there. And it would have been as easy as that. The simple twang of a bow and Gollum would have died. But he chooses to spare his life.

In both instances, Frodo and Bilbo both choose to spare Gollum’s life. There is no ulterior motive, if anything, it would have made things easier for them, but they both choose to be merciful. To show kindness, to act out of empathy and not needlessly take a life. And these collective decisions eventually lead to Frodo’s struggle with Gollum at Mt Doom, leading to the destruction of the ring. It’s not epic acts of grandiose heroism that ultimately vanquish evil, but small acts of unnoticed kindness and mercy that lead to its end. Frodo and Bilbo will not go down in history as great heroes, but these small unnoticed moments proved to be insanely important moments for the story.

So, what’s the big point I’m to trying to make? Where is this all going?

Tolkien writes this huge, spanning, epic fantasy where our main characters' traits are not centred around greatness, the ability to wield some form of insane godlike power or even the power to surmount some great evil- because we know that although Hobbits have an innate ability to resist the pull of the one ring- they too are susceptible to its power. Case and point Frodo giving in the heart of Mt Doom, and Bilbo’s gradual decline over the years into a meth head at the thought of the ring.

To me, I think the message of the Lord of the Rings buries under countless subplots, lore and other themes is that evil is self-defeating, yes, but also that evil is self-defeating through the simple, acts of good people in ordinary life. It had to be the Hobbits who were the focus of the story BECAUSE they have no capacity for greatness. All they can do is be kind, be true friends, be empathetic and just all-around swell folks. They’re just nice people, they’re on some level, the greatness we miss. Which is a huge part of what makes us human when it comes to these long-drawn-out, epic stories of good versus evil. I might even go far enough to say, they’re at the core of what it means to be human, which gets buried under these moments of power, greatness and awe.

Simple acts like sparing Gollum’s life, undertaken by both Bilbo and Frodo. Frodo leaving the safety of the fellowship even though he knows he probably will not make it without Legolas’s insane gymnastic archery and Aragorn’s smoulder. He leaves knowing that the ring would tear them apart if he stayed. He leaves knowing it’ll make it so much harder for him. Merry and Pippin distract the Orcs so that Frodo can escape when they realise Frodo is leaving the fellowship. They know they stand no chance against a few let alone a small army of Orcs but still, they do what they must. Sam keeps the promise he makes to Gandalf about never abandoning Frodo, and without Sam, Frodo would have died 17 times at least. Not to mention that epic scene at the foothills of Mt Doom where he carries him would have never come to pass.

In a world where everything, literally, everything is bigger, stronger, faster, more terrifying and just more powerful than you are, the Hobbits have no chance at survival. Would the story have had the same impact if the Hobbits were replaced by regular-sized men with an average talent for swordsmanship? I don’t think so. And I think that’s because their greatness comes from the fact that by design, they’re not meant for this kind of journey but they do it ANYWAY. They’re written in such a way that right from the beginning, they’re at a disadvantage at every given point- but they do it anyway.

Doing things are that hard, that make us afraid, that we have every reason to fail, every excuse not to do, DESPITE the odds- simply because it is the right thing to do. And ultimately, that makes the difference. Frodo gives in to the evil of the ring at the end and that’s okay because the greatest move he made as part of his fight against evil was not actively resisting it, it was just being empathetic and kind when no one was looking. And really that’s all that matters.

This brings me to the second scene which has me weeping like a child. This scene takes place at the end. The ring is destroyed, and Frodo and Sam were carried to safety by the Eagles and Gandalf. Aragorn, now Ellesar, is being crowned king. He sings this long, lament for his love, Arwen, who he believes has sailed into the West, never to be seen again. As he walks amongst all the familiar faces we’ve come to know and love, Legolas turns up and says sike, “ You thought you were gonna die alone? Nah fam, I gotchu, I gotchu.” Out pops Arwen, she stayed behind for him. He grabs that booty like he hasn’t seen some ass in half a decade. All is good.

This is the peak of his arc. He is High King, uniting kingdoms that have been separated for 3000 years, the ring is gone, he has his one, true, immortal Elf wife, his father-in-law, Elrond, approves. A rarity for sure. EVERYTHING that he could ask for- he has.

The last faces, the faces we’ve been waiting to see pop up around the corner: Merry, Pipin, Sam and Frodo. Our four brave Hobbits.

They bow to the new High King. Aragorn looks at them, confused, surprised. He says “My friends…” taking a moment- because they need not bow to him. They’ve been through hell and high water, formality is not something he’s looking for. Even more so, if not for the four of them, he would not have the things he has now. Viggo Mortensen, does this beautifully, as the full range of emotions changes across his face. Surprise, delight, confusion, a little bit of “we don’t do that around here” and then the enormity of this moment actualizes. And he says:

“You bow to no one.”

And he bows, along with everyone gathered. Aragorn, Arwen, Legolas, Gimli, Elrond, Gandalf. EVERYONE bows. Minas Tirith is on its knees for four, 3 foot something, halflings. Aragorn takes his moment, the highest point of his life so far, and gives it over to them.

And I think that’s the message that Tolkien was trying to tell. Greatness, or good-ness or just opposing evil isn’t always about charging headfirst into battle or actively campaigning against the threat. Sometimes the greatest thing you can do is act out of kindness even when you think it doesn’t matter.

You don’t have to be great to be somebody’s hero

Have some faith, be their fluffy pillow

Watch their stupid little plays from the front seat row

Be the oaken long bow to their iron arrow

Look out for the sad, lonely, nerdy, weirdo

Walk her home, through the cold, dark and empty, narrow,

Don’t hit that button, raise her, love her and watch her grow her grow old

Take them trekking through the mountains, ‘oh the snow’s so cold’

Show people life, stop being cold, so damn hollow,

Don’t forget her favorite box of cheerios

Even if somebody smiles, you ain’t no small zero

Cause when you’re someone’s hope

You be their superhero

This one came out of a freestyle session I did with my friends a couple of weeks back. We had a beat playing in the background- for about 4–5 minutes and we had to juice out a few bars- no specific limit- just anything.

I think I picked ‘hero’ as the focus of this because we we’re just talking about another friends’ dad and how he treated her. It was quite unfair and I wanted to write something from her perspective- talking about how easy it was to be there for someone and also how important.

Each line is something simple, that is often overlooked by people, especially parents- and they’re painfully unaware of the effects it can have on children. It could be as simple as just showing up to their plays, or being the support system when everything else fails.

While I started it off as let’s talk about how parents can fall short, it eventually evolved into talking about basic things that everyone could do to be a good person. You don’t have to be some great conqueror, or stop some great calamity to be a hero.

The last two lines summarize the point of the poem saying that if you’re someone’s hope if you’re someone’s comfort, someone’s reason to keep going — you become their hero

I’ve seen trees of green, red roses too

I remember them bloom, for me and for you

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world,

I remember falling skies, a million cries

A bang of flashing flight and a wave of blazing fires

And so came to an end, our wonderful world

Now the trees are dead, roses burnt through

Cities crumble, the firebombs pulled through

And I smirk to myself,

What a wonderful world

I wanted this one to be relatively simple, not as complicated as the others- but I still wanted to do something different. So, I picked the words from the wonderful world by Louis Armstrong and added two more stanzas of my own.

The first stanza is the one from the original song- to establish that things start the same way. It's about a beautiful world and all of its wonders.

The second stanza is the breakaway- where things change. Instead of maintaining that positive tonality, it moves to a more post-apocalyptic vision.

The last stanza, in my opinion, is the main focus. It directly contrasts the first stanza, showing that everything that was beautiful in the beginning is burnt and gone. The last two lines reveal the sinister plot twist that this was the desired outcome. I wanted this to subtly reflect modern industries and their exploiting of the earth’s resources- but in a less preachy, not traditional good vs evil argument. I wanted it to feel like- that ultimately- we are all individually responsible.

Oh Geranium, has it been a millennium?

You’re so childish, bunched up, um

I see red and gold, but smell no rum

Anemone, Persephone awaits by her throne

Hell has frozen over, scorn

Your return is mourning

been months, shivering cold

I recused you a bunch of Marigold

Said what’s the matter, you withhold,

I scold.

The roses pose on your porch

Untouched, unscorched

‘your sorrows are mine’ I boast,

A cave darkens, I’m no longer a host

Oh Jasmine, the cave greets

Be mine, of lies and deceit

Our love is a crime, sugary sweet

But Poppy, my dreams are of you

Float away, free in the blue

But the dream is over,

Gladiola, you pierce my heart lover

Did our luck run out

When we ran out of clovers

I scream in the chasm of endless days

Camelia, I shall love you always

But I hear nothing, not a trace

She burns, walking on this frozen earth

Cursed to be

Torn in two worlds, from death to birth

I say

Lilac, do you still love me?

The idea for this poem came from a sweatshirt I recently purchased. It had graphics depicting different flowers followed up by different text which somehow struck a chord with me and felt appropriate. As a result, I wrote this poem.

I wanted the poem to function like almost a forbidden and unnecessarily convoluted love story but was chronicled like the seasons.

The first two stanzas are about fall, describing a pleasant unsuspecting person- just like fall. It’s filled with these colors and smells, and it’s all very mellow.

The next three stanzas are about winter, it's cold, and biting, and has people thinking about the times when things were nicer- simpler. The verses also get more hostile, and darker, showing how the person is withdrawing from you as you try to hold on tighter- making things worse. I also wanted the winter season to be the longest with three different flowers, because in Champaign(where I go to college)- the winters always feel the longest.

The next two paragraphs are about spring, short-lived and almost like a fever dream. You’re getting desperate now, even more than before but then there’s also the sinking feeling that you’re just making this worse. It’s also about bargaining, trying to see where and why the both of you messed up.

The last two, are summer, it's beautiful and warm outside. Everyone is happy except you because your love story has come to an end. You scream in frustration- but the person is already too far gone.

The last paragraph is a wrap-around to the start, revealing that the person you’ve been pursuing all this time is Persephone or Kore, hence the title- and your love like Hades- is doomed to end and start anew time and time again. It is just a wicked cycle bound to repeat until the end of days. It is both inescapable and comforting.

Been where sometimes

Even unsuspecting come together

Through the medium

Creating.

Forgive my desire

Colors seek to connect

You.

To not just committing but

Birthing spaces

Welcoming

This voice.

What will you see

Past

Present

This moment?

If you feel, ponder

One of the main things that I wanted to achieve with this was a feeling of fluidity, impermanence, vivid emotions, and feelings. I also very recently discovered blackout poetry, so I used that technique for this one. I have to say I quite enjoy black-out poetry.

I also wanted to capture what psychedelics felt like, in a very honest and vulnerable way. I wanted there to be a flow that if viewed from above, like a bird’s eye view- would make it make more sense, but in the process of reading could feel disjointed, unpredictable but bold.

The first stanza talks about the experience of doing psychedelics as a commonplace that people visit. Like a room floating out there somewhere, it’s always there but you can only visit it sometimes.

I’ve read that part of doing psychedelics is experiencing extreme love and affection for people and also that people see patterns and colors. I liked the idea of colors moving like patterns connecting us to the people that we feel this love for.

The third stanza is more about that warmth that people feel. A connectedness to something bigger, a desire to be more than just you and your desires- but almost like a single people trying to help each other, which again stems from this intense passion and connectedness people have reportedly experienced.

The fourth stanza is written as a question- but it's not. It’s asking you, what do you think you will see but at the same time it’s telling you what you will see. People also experience loss in time and inhibition, so I think this was trying to capture a moment where you experience all three- but do not question it. Sort of just ride it.

The last line is honestly my favorite because, in my head what it’s trying to say is- so you just experienced all of this, you felt these things, you saw things. Now it’s up to you to take it further. I’ve read a lot of subreddits where musical artists do psychedelic and write music. I like to think they experience things, and changes in perspectives- they then take those barely coherent jumble of feelings and condense it into something profound. They took their experiences and pushed it to the next level.