Best Wizard Ever, Gandalf, had some seriously killer lines. Reading them in context of the story, it seems like Tolkein used his wizard’s voice to break the fourth wall, telling readers directly that they, like an ordinary Hobbit, can use their feelings to accomplish great things.

The ripples of our emotions flare out and become the world we live in. A virus becomes a pandemic, a feeling becomes a movement, a crime becomes a law—when it touches other people. And I had to illustrate this ripling as nesting rings because I love interlocking references. The rings you carry can change the world (and the captions are composed to apply to both the LOTR universe and to ours).

how someone’s personal assumptions become everyone’s problem

how someone’s sense ownership can destroy the commons

how one person’s journey can change the identity of an entire group

how one person can become incredibly vital by being merely useful

how single actors can bend the arcs of history

how wisdom and misinformation are disseminated from an initial source

how what one person doesn’t know can become an entire branch of science or religion

how one person’s resillience can become a facet of humanity’s success

how one person leaving home can make everyone safer in theirs

how laws are built upon the foundations of unwelcome behaviors

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10 times Gandalf explained how the personal…