It took sipping the usual, humming the familiar, and sitting in the definition of comfort (with my feet dangling high above the floor) to discover that I am Bilbo Baggins. Typical.
There is no one I would rather have mused over it with than the Brenna and Chelsea, stationed in most coveted corner of Common Grounds. They not only know me, but delight in unearthing new truths from old stories, specific to each person. Whatever can be gleaned from characters, whatever cultivates courage from their victories or compassion at their failures, is ours if we want it. Ask, seek, find.
There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were afterI have always loved the hobbit. There is something endearing about him despite his insecurity, skiddishness, longing for his creature comforts, uselessness to the point of hindrance. We forgive him all of that because we know the deepest yearnings of his heart: his yearning for adventure, to be an advantage, to find purpose beyond his round door. But more than all of that, his heart is made of the stuff of sacrifice. To give of himself and lay down his life for something worthy of abandoning every comfortable, familiar thing.
This lay dormant as the years increased and his knowledge of his own heart diminished.
But something woke him from his stagnant state. The call, for him,
"It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
"Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" ~ The Hobbit
"Also I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth" - by which he meant: "What am I going to get out of it? and am I going to come back alive?"
"There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something."
And why not? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies just because you helped them come about. You don't really suppose do you that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck? Just for your sole benefit? You're a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I'm quite fond of you. But you are really just a little fellow, in a wide world after all."
