"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost"

...but I wish someone would lose all those bumper stickers in a black hole. I don't like bumper stickers in general, but that one is mega-trite, and the quote is taken out of context anyway:

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost;

the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring;

renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king."

First of all, that's an awesomely lyrical passage and nobody ought to break it up to make tacky head shop knickknacks, but second, considered in context, the line suggests an exiled person who is wandering for a purpose but will finish wandering at some point and return to a formerly lost home. So, it's not supposed to romanticize wandering; in fact, it makes it sound kinda shitty when you think about it. I mean, who wants to wander when there's a nice comfy throne waiting at the castle? But over time, the One Quote (heh) seems to have mutated into a blessing of aimlessness. And aimlessness is like an American social disease.

Now, I've certainly been aimless, and in fact, I am still kinda aimless, so I understand how it just sort of happens and how it can be a difficult rut to get out of. And I can get behind a certain liberating, healthy kind of aimlessness too. Like, I can see mainstream society looking at a commune and being like "get a job and a haircut, hippie, and contribute some taxes to the dark-people-bombing fund," but that's a kind of aimlessness that I think would be great if it were a complete lifestyle change. So wandering in the sense of wholeheartedly following a path contrary to the mainstream can work out just fine. Wandering in the sense of "I think I will wander over to my parents' couch for a nap, then get up later and smoke a bowl" is not so noble, but, again, I see the source of that anomie. Still, that doesnt make it healthy, and I know way more people who are wandering away, in general, than people who are actually wandering toward something.

It sucks to have one foot in a socioeconomic machine that transforms people into cogs and grinds them into obliviousness while the other foot scrambles to stand on anything solidly human, but it seems like that's the position we find ourselves in. I'm no different, anyone who knows me has heard me bitch about working pointless computer jobs, but it's like we all get caught in a trap that we have to snuggle into somehow. I hate that I know good-hearted, incredibly capable people who force themselves into whatever niche they can survive in, no matter how ill-fitting, because they have few options to take care of themselves and their families. How is anyone supposed to care when society collectively cares less and less? We're getting ramrodded into powerlessness by a train that's gone off its rails, and it shouldn't be this way. Don't give me a fucking BUMPER STICKER, the cheesiest value meal expression of McThought possible, that celebrates something so awful and soulless. The vital essence of humanity is the strong old that does not wither; its deep roots are not frozen, at least, not yet, but they have to be feeling the cold. That's what the passage is about: the return of the king to his rightful place after a time lost in the wilderness, the return of human hearts to their essential, vibrant glory after a miserable trip through indifference.

Not to mention that those things must have Tolkien spinning in his grave. I bet he never thought he'd be condensed onto cheesy, glossy paper just so he could cover up some girl's Volkswagen, especially when that girl's foot seemed to have gotten lost and needed to wander back over to the gas pedal. So now you know how I had so much time to think about a fuckin' sticker in the first place. Damn, that was a helluva tangent there. Anybody got some bourbon?