Daily Learnings: Thu, Sep 12, 2024
A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. — John C. Maxwell
Gandalf on Wisdom
I have a goal to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy this year, and I’m way behind. In reading through The Fellowship of the Ring, I caught a great quote from Gandalf in his confrontation of Saruman.
The context for the following is that Gandalf is recounting his encounter with Saruman after-the-fact to the Council of Elrond:
‘For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!’
I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
‘I liked white better,’ I said.
‘White!’ he sneered. ‘It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.’
‘In which case it is no longer white,’ said I. ‘And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.’
There are a ton of quotes attributed to Gandalf that many use from to illustrate important life lessons. This is one that I hadn’t heard or seen before. I could be wrong in my interpretation, but to me it means:
It’s foolish to do something just because you can.
Interestingly enough, the Rings of Power series introduces a contrary piece of advice from Finrod to Galadriel in season 1:
Young Galadriel: “It’s hard to say which way is up and which way is down. How am I to know which lights to follow?”
Finrod: “Sometimes we cannot know until we have touched the darkness.”
To me, these are two conflicting councils. The one from Gandalf encourages people to stick to safe paths, and to not push the bounds of wise council just to see if it is right. Finrod’s advice to Galadriel (which I believe has no tie back to anything JRR Tolkien wrote, though I could be wrong) seems to say the opposite: “Sometimes you have to push the bounds of what you think is right just to make sure that you know where the line is.”
I’m potentially misinterpreting these lines; but if I’m not, I personally reject the latter. I really appreciate Gandalf’s words to Saruman, and I identify more with that take on what is truly wisdom.