A Dangerous Threshold.

As one who views comfort as largely a product of contrast (in this case the contrast between what one has and what one had, or would like to have), I have lately been disappointed by the intimation that there may be depths of suffering which no later relief can truly allay. This may at face value seem like an obvious statement. Surely, victims of childhood abuse often spend much of their lives trying to recover. But I wonder if the suffering cannot be simpler than such examples that are inseparably tied to the byzantine way that we react to other human's actions toward us. Reading the biographies of explorers who endured physically crushing experiences in the Antarctic or the Amazon, one finds that even in cases where the relationships between the individuals remained positive and where there were no fatalities, the explorers often are reported to have experienced recurrent depression the rest of their life (though perhaps people prone to depression are more likely to want to become explorers). To the naïve mind, it might seem that returning home safe from such brutal conditions would allow one to truly appreciate the comforts of civilization. Apparently though, this is not true in many cases. Does pain and stress warp the mind permanently? And if so, where is the threshold where we enter the region where we are doing permanent damage to the fine interplay of neurtransmitters and hormones.?

This idea is an often over-looked theme in The Lord of the Rings. Though critics often dismiss the work as a “school boy’s” idea of war, they forget that the conclusion of the novel, despite the fact that the protagonists win the war with only one of the principle characters dying (and he already an old man), is not necessarily a happy one. Despite the prosperous condition that the Shire returns to after Saruman’s death, Frodo is slowly forced to accepted that he can never return to the life that he had, and that his experiences carrying the ring will always follow him. He has permanently changed. One cannot help but wonder if this theme comes from Tolkien’s own experiences during WWI, where post-traumatic stress disorder featured prominently in the aftermath of the war.