Are we living legends?

This week's chapter is called "The Riders of Rohan," and the text follows the Three Hunters, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli as they pursue the orcs which captured Merry and Pippin.  In the course of their chase, they enter the land of Rohan.

Rohan has been mentioned several times throughout the text already - sometimes we hear that Rohan pays tribute to Mordor, sometimes that they are strong and valiant Men.  No Rohirrim were present at the Council of Elrond (It is important to remember that Boromir of Gondor wasn't technically invited - he just happened to arrive in Rivendell a few weeks before the Council assembled on an errand concerning The Ring) But that gets into a discussion about coincidences in Middle Earth, which is a topic for another day)).  Can they be trusted?  Who are the riders?  Will they be traitors like Saruman, or aloof like the Elves?  Will they be ignorant of the coming onslaught, as Shirefolk, or wholly unconcerned, as Tom Bombadil?

The Hunters meet a large group of Rohirrim on the plains, and they are described like this:

Their horses were of great stature, strong and clean-limbed;

their grey coats glistened, their long tails flowed in the wind,

their manes were braided on their proud necks.  The men that rode them match them well:

tall and long-limbed; their hair, flaxen-pale, flowed under their light helms,

and streamed in long braids behind them; their faces were stern and keen.

In their hands were tall spears of ash, painted shields were slung at their backs,

long swords were at their belts, their burnished skirts of mail hung down upon their knees.

They certainly sounds like "good guys." We know the Creative Wizard has a bias - he is on the side of the Free Peoples and the Quest.  Therefore, it is rare for him to describe servants of the Enemy in such majesty.  Earlier in the chapter, when describing Aragorn's methods of tracking the orcs, he [the Creative Wizard] refers to their "Hated Feet."  There is little doubt, then, that the Rohirrim are to be feared.

Aragorn tells Eomer (the leader of the riders) who he is and what their purpose is (Though he omits The Ring) and implores them for help.  Eomer tells him they attacked a party of orcs the previous night and killed them all.  Aragorn asks if they found any prisoners, and Gimli clarifies that they are halflings.  An anonymous rider laughs, "Halflings!  But they are only a little people in old songs and children's tales.  Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?"  Aragorn responds, "A man may do both.  For not we but those who come after will make legends of our time."  What does he mean by this?

Legends are not present events.  They can never be present events.  When Isildur cut The Ring from Sauron's hand, when Gollum took The Ring into the caves, when Bilbo was asked to go on a big adventure, these were not legends - they were current events.  They became legends because those in later times (the now-current times) made legends out of them.

Benjamin Franklin once said, "In order to not be forgotten when you die: Write something worth reading, or do something worth writing."  I think he's talking about the same things.  We might live in extraordinary times, if only we were to make them extraordinary.  Future generations will decide what we did, if anything, that is worth remembering.

Many decry that the likes of Twilight and Justin Bieber and 50 Shades of Grey will be what we are remembered for - but why would that be?  History is the art of condensing information.  Asking people to summarize a decade should be impossible, but it isn't, because really what that means is tell us the best and the worst events and trends of that time.  In other words, find the legends (or terrors) out of those 10 years.  Out of 3650+ days, find me the 30 or so that are important.  Is it any wonder that living through a decade, seeing EVERYTHING (the good and bad), causes a kind of blindness?

Oldies radio stations play the best 50, 100, 200 songs from a handful of decades.  Pop radio stations play the newest thing, because their goal is to just giving expose to new artists and songs.  Without that exposure, we won't know they exist.  And who can predict which songs will be popular and which won't be?  How will we find "Royals" without just shuffling through hundreds of songs a year.  Lorde isn't a great artist in an age of crap any more than the Beatles were.  There's only one way to find the diamonds in the rough.

The legacy of the past can seem daunting because we've already picked out the best bits and framed them.  If the past is a museum, modern culture is a newly broken excavation site.  EVERYTHING IS THERE.  Obviously the past will look superior - we've cut it down to the bare essentials.

If you really think we're living in a culturally bankrupt time, add something to it - make something that will be worth remembering.  History is not kind to complainers, unless they do something to contribute.  Martin Luther isn't just remembered because of his 95 Theses, but because of the Protestant movement he then spearheaded.  If you're disappointed with our impending cultural legacy, work to improve it.  Do something worth writing, or write something worth reading.  Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?  We can do both.  We must do both.