As many of you know (or should know), today is the twenty-seventh of April. All of you Tolkien fans out there should be happy to learn that 27 April is the day on which Gandalf the Grey, accompanied by thirteen hairy (and hungry) Dwarves, showed up at the front door of a plump, lovable, and silly Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. That's right, folks: today is the anniversary of that unexpected party at which everything began and the fate of Middle Earth was changed forever. (As is told in J.R.R. Tolkien's children's classic, The Hobbit)
Bilbo was not by any means the adventurous type. In fact, he came from one of the least adventurous and most respectable families in the Shire. And yet, despite all that, he couldn't help but feel stirred in his heart at the thought of going far away on a dangerous treasure-hunt. That was the other part of his lineage speaking, the "Tookish" part.
We all have a little bit of Took inside of us, no matter how deeply buried it might be. And we certainly need it, because life itself is an adventure that requires stepping out of one's front door and walking whither the Road leads. At the end of each adventure, we return home changed and (let us hope) matured, and hopefully a little eccentric too, like Mr. Baggins.
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