The Inner Gollum

With the new “Lord of the Rings” movie coming out, it was the time to revisit the old ones. As I was watching them, I suddenly developed quite a bit of pity for Gollum. I used to hate that character – it’s ugly, scheming and annoying. “My precious” is funny simply because it was stupidly annoying and cliché. However this time round, after several years more of life experience, I suddenly feel for the character in a very different way.

Gollum was obsessed with the ring – even though it was not meant to be his. He killed his cousin to obtain it and from that point onward, he thought he found what he wanted, cling on to it and descended into obscurity. Watching his downfall in a marathon manner made me reflecting on certain things around me in my life. I began to question myself: “How different am I from Gollum?”

Looking back my life from this point, there were prominent moments that I thought I found something that was mine. And the reason? Simply because it was nice, I liked it and I had always wanted it.  Once obtained, I tried to apply all measures to hold on to it even when I knew very well that I should have moved on or let go. I myself have become the Gollum that I used to hate with a passion.

Tokkien characters are very real because they learn to live with their goods and their flaws. For these characters life is always a fine art in balancing the two sides. Gollum is an unfortunate character that eventually his flaw, which he was well aware off, took over his good. It is easy for me to judge Gollum, but am I seeing the peck in other people’s eyes without knowing the log in mine? I believe some of us did have occasions that we want to hold on to things that are no longer belonging to us. In Gollum’s case it was quite straightforward – the ring possessed him – he felt compelled that he had to keep the ring in close guard. So when he lost it and later found out Frodo had it, he went to the distance to try to re-claim it. Of course there was a period that he came to his senses briefly but his desire for the ring had completely corrupted his mind and drove him to his final demise.

As I think about some scenarios of my life so far, I must admit that I did have quite a few of these Gollum moments myself. Be it a relationship, an item or a job, there were different occasions that I wanted to hold on to something that I know very well that I should have let go. Now thinking about it I was quite “ugly” in terms of a person during those periods. At times I even resent myself as a person. Giving up or moving on sometimes is hard. This is not only because you are “losing something” you held dear but also because of the uncertainty in how you anchor that part of yourself in the future.  I guess there are always breaking points that you know you can’t do anything but comply with the situation. But complying is very different from willingly let go. For me compliance hurts much more than a free will decision to let go. But I guess as you grow older you would probably have a bit more tricks up your sleeves to deal with these situations, making it less painful maybe.

I think compared to Gollum we are a lot luckier in a way that we were not actually “possessed” (although we might sometimes want to think so just to justify our actions). The fact is no situation in our lives is absolute. We can’t even guarantee we would wake up from our sleep the next morning, let alone holding on to people we like, possessions we hold dearly to or a job we love greatly. There would always be a possibility that we need to part with them and I think learning to part with them gracefully is a life long process. Humans are emotional beings. We get attached to people and things, and sometimes that’s how we support our own existence. This inevitably makes the detaching process a lot harder. However, looking at the bright side (which I tried to remind myself to) is that you never know whether better things would come along if you don’t let go of the present. Thinking along this line provides me the token to exchange present for the future. Fool, some people might think I am, but if it works for me and provides the positive energy I need to live on, I will stick to this “philosophy” of mine. Also when you look back at a later stage, you would start to re-evaluate how “precious” actually were those “My Precious”.

I believe we all have our “Inner Gollums” but the question is how far would we let our “Inner Gollum” to take over. This is something I am still learning case by case and day by day.