Gollum
“All the ‘great secrets’ under the mountains had turned out to be just empty night:? there was nothing more to find out, nothing worth doing, only nasty furtive eating and resentful remembering.? He was altogether wretched.? He hated the dark, and he hated the light more: he hated everything, and the Ring most of all.
“‘What do you mean?’ said Frodo. ‘Surely the Ring was his precious and the only thing he cared for?? But if he hated it, why didn’t he get rid of it or go away and leave it?’
“‘You ought to begin to understand, Frodo, after all you have heard,’ said Gandalf.? ‘He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself.? He could not get rid of it.? He had no will left in the matter.’”
J.R.R. Tolkien
More than any other character in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, I understand Gollum.?
I have a love/hate relationship with myself and my desires.? My body cries out for the very thing that eats away at my mind.? I want money.? I want power.? I want sex.? These things bring an emptiness and sorrow that cannot be satisfied.? And yet I continue to try.? I feed my precious desires and keep them close to my heart.? I hide myself in a cavern of darkness and flee the light, hoping for what I do not know.
I hate what I do and yet I embrace it.? Thus was Gollum’s struggle, Paul’s struggle and my own.? Someone comes along and frees me from my precious living death and all I want to do is kill him for it.? “Give it back!” I cry.? “My precious! I wants it.”
