The Future of CSB/SJU Reflections

The past three months have been a blast. Your authors have really enjoyed sharing their favorite memories and thoughts from a fulfilling four years at CSB/SJU. Thank you, readers, for listening and sharing some of yours with us.

Connor and Chris are separated by many states, but their collaboration is closely knit.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Fortunately, CSB/SJU Reflections’ finale is nowhere in sight. We will continue blogging despite being more than a thousand miles apart. Chris is currently teaching economics at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School near New York City and will do so for the next year. Many of his future blogs will relate to his experiences as an inner-city school teacher.

Connor, meanwhile, is working at a French-German bakery while studying for the GMAT, writing for Neverest Outfitters and Duluth Screen Printing Co., working on a fantasy novel, and watching as much Blazer volleyball as he can.

As in the past, most of our blog entries will be individual ones. Occasionally we’ll cooperate on a joint entry. These entries are exciting for us, as it gives us an excuse to chat and collaborate (we work well together). Yet, the tremendous distance between us and differences in our schedules make such teamwork difficult, making joint entries few and far between.

Despite our change in scenery, we will continue to blog. We hope you will continue to read!

Your thoughtful companions,
Chris Heitzig and Connor Beck

Why The Lord of the Rings?

Life contains many difficult decisions. One of the hardest is choosing which works of art to engage with. Henry David Thoreau once offered a solution to the problem when he said, “Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” If we follow Thoreau’s advice, then the first story we should dive into is The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings films have won more academy awards than any film series of all time. (Credit: Fotonin.com)

In The Lord of the Rings, we see that, much like ourselves, the characters of these films experience love, friendship, happiness, selfishness, impatience, temptation, fear, and anxiety. We feel drawn to the vicarious experiences we share with the characters of The Lord of the Rings, and we find inspiration in how the characters eventually resolve those challenges. Some characters fail at times to meet their goals or to resist temptations, but that makes them even more authentic and relatable, because we do as well. They’re not perfect and neither are we, yet, despite their imperfections and their occasional failings, they demonstrate to us that by calling upon each other and the best aspects of their inner being, they can triumph over the challenges they face, even in the full reality of their own imperfection.

Hand-drawn portraits of Gandalf and Bilbo, prominent characters in The Lord of the Rings, adorn the wall in Connor’s room in Greg House where he lived his junior year.

The Lord of the Rings is critically acclaimed. The trilogy, which J.R.R. Tolkien originally published as a six-volume set, is the third best-selling novel of all-time, behind Harry Potter and Charles Dickens’ famous classic The Tale of Two Cities. The Lord of the Rings films are highly rated as well. The three movies won a combined 17 Academy Awards and received 26 academy award nominations overall. The Return of the King, the third movie in the series, is tied with Ben-Hur (1959) and Titanic (1997) with the most academy awards at 11. In addition, the three films rank 9th, 11th, and 16th respectively on IMDB’s all-time movie list. The Lord of the Rings films are well worth the watch, if only to expand your knowledge of Hollywood’s most acclaimed films.

The Lord of the Rings is based on a myth that is over 2,500 years old. The myth’s earliest literary appearance is in The Republic by Plato. One of the book’s orators tells the story of “The Ring of Gyges,” whose main character discovers an invisibility ring and is thereupon tempted by all sorts of mischief, from theft to murder. The main players in the Lord of the Rings are tempted in a similar respect. They succumb to the power promised by the ring. Though no such ring exists in our world, we all fall victim to the crippling effects too much power can have on our lives.

The soundtrack is divine. Howard Shore, the composer, has had his hands in many well-regarded films, like Crash (2004), Hugo (2011), Seven (1995), and The Departed (2006). Shore’s process writing the score to The Lord of the Rings soundtrack, however, is particularly impressive. Before writing a single note, Shore spent four months researching “Ring Mythology.” He visited the film’s set in New Zealand more than a dozen times, absorbing a scenery which was about to nourish the dreams of The Lord of the Rings fans for years to come. He hired linguists, who were familiar with the languages Tolkien wrote specifically for the story, to write accompanying Elvish, Dwarvish, and Orcish lyrics for the soundtrack. The sheer preparation devoted to the composition warrants a listen (which is why we embedded it into this post below).

http://www.presentations.wificourses.org/Economics/media/18%20Samwise%20The%20Brave.m4a%20

In the end, the decision to experience The Lord of the Rings remains entirely up to you. Your time is your time. Yet, we believe that it’s important to consistently devote a portion of that time to developing ourselves as individuals so that we might better understand and love the world around us. For us, The Lord of the Rings has in many ways allowed us to live with more intention, gain some inspiration, escape from the real-world for a while, and then return to it with more resolve, strength, and determination to meet the challenges we find there. Gandalf, a prominent character in the story, wisely states, “All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” Experiencing The Lord of the Rings films and novels is one of the best ways to spend your time. You’ve heard what we have to say now the rest is up to you.