Roots of wisdom

"Who are you, Master?" Frodo asked.
"Eldest, that's what I am.  Mark my words, my friends - Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn.  He made paths before the Big People, and saw little People arriving.  He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow wights.  When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent.  He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside."

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Such is Tom Bombadil introduced to us, albeit about halfway through the chapter.  This chapter is called "In the House of Tom Bombadil," and has been challenging readers for decades.  Tom's house is full of wonders, not least of which are his wife Goldberry (who almost seems to have the quality of an ancient Siren) and Tom, himself.  Both seem jolly and joyful beyond reason, yet both are also shown to be wise and grave when needed.  That the Creative Wizard was able to concoct characters such as this is a testament to his skill.

Tom tells many stories to our companions.  The narrative gives us summaries.  One story is the origin of the Old Forest.  It is this story I wish to focus on.



"It was not called the Old Forest without reason, for it was indeed ancient, a survivor of a vast forgotten woods; and in it there lived yet, ageing no quicker than the hills, the fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering when they were lords.  The countless years had filled them with pride and rooted wisdom, and with malice."

I am curious about the term "rooted wisdom."  Wisdom is generally seen as a positive in the text, but here it is listed with pride and malice.  And it isn't "Pride and rooted wisdom, but also with malice."  In that case we would agree that pride can be positive, and therefore the trees are proud and wise but also filled with malice.  But no.  It is pride and rooted wisdom and malice.  All three are bad things.  What to make of this?

In order to begin to shed light on this question, let's back up in the sentence.  What filled them with these things?  The countless years.  But we know that Tom was here before them.  Tom is filled with neither pride nor malice.  But he is wise.  But is this wisdom rooted?  What does that even mean?  Let's take an example from American history.

We know that the pilgrims were farmers.  They did not leave England because they could not farm and were hungry.  They were able to provide their own sustenance.  They left for a different purpose.  But, after arriving in North America, they had difficulty farming.  The crops they brought did not grow as well as they had back in England.  They had to learn how to plant Maize.

150 years later, the Crown's forces were the most powerful military in the world.  And yet they were defeated in Lexington and Concord by a militia of farmers who were both less trained and less numerous.  The British Regulars were used to fighting columns of men in the open.  When militiamen shot at them individually from trees and behind walls, they did not know how to react.  Their superiority melted away.

Both pilgrims and the British regulars had rooted wisdom.  They were experts in their craft, but only in a limited way.  They knew what to do and understood how it worked.  But they weren't able to see beyond it.  To them, their solution could fix anything - even if it were like fitting a round peg into a square hole.  The hole would relent.  It just had to.

And so, we see that rooted wisdom is when your wisdom becomes stuck in its practice.  When you begin to believe the action is the wisdom, rather than an application of it.  This is similar to what we were discussing last week about metaphors.  There is a limit to the benefit.  And beyond that, it becomes a hindrance.  A skilled salesperson is not only good at selling cars, but rather understands sales more broadly, such that s/he can sell most things.  Selling is the wisdom.  Selling cars is the applied wisdom.  But if one cannot figure out how to sell products because they are unlike cars, that wisdom has become rooted.

I am a teacher.  One of the difficulties I face is that every child I work with is an individual.  What motivates one does not motivate another.  There is one child who, if I give her an assignment, I know she will do the work correctly.  Another child, if I assign him a worksheet, I also need to sit with for a few minutes to help him understand it.  There is a child who, when she is angry, needs me to sit down with me and talk about her feelings.  Another child, when he is angry, I turn him toward the street and he and I yell as loud as we can until he feels he's gotten his anger out.  Then we can talk.

These solutions are child-specific.  They are applied wisdom.  There is a wisdom beyond them:  Every child has a unique set of needs that must be met.  This may seem obvious, but if you have ever heard an adult say "When I was a kid, all I needed was..." then you have seen rooted wisdom.  Perhaps even you have said it.  If your solution to any problem involves one particular action, you are dealing with rooted wisdom.

Rooted wisdom is applied wisdom that has forgotten where it is from.  Forgotten its purpose.  Rooted wisdom is to put faith in the action rather than the purpose.  Obviously one must act, but one must remember why one acts.  If your wisdom is rooted, then if your action fails, you will blame the problem for being too hard, as if the problem should have been easier and no one should expect you to be able to deal with this kind of problem.  If your wisdom is applied, you can take a step back and reflect on what you're trying to do, and how best to do it.  If your wisdom has become rooted, you cannot effectively react to new problems.

The trees of the Old Forest are, literally, rooted to the ground.  Tom, of course, is not.  But that literal difference represents so much.  The trees are incapable of seeing the big picture.  They are, inherently, the center of their world view.  Tom can walk around something - he can see it from many sides.  The trees only see things from where they are stationed.  The trees, when they do move, move only to destroy what threatens them.  The one tree whose name we do learn, the one that attacked Merry, is called Old Man Willow, which conjures up all sorts of grumpy and misanthropic images.  Indeed, "Get off my lawn!" has never seemed more appropriate...

But Tom moves out of a desire to explore and wonder at the world.  Tom dances.  Tom sings.  Tom has a wife.  Tom is constantly interacting with the world, and we get the feeling he is enamored with it all.  Tom possesses wisdom, but he also possesses the wisdom of perspective.  Tom applies his wisdom, but it does not become rooted.

I love music.  I have my favorite albums growing up from the 2000s and 90s.  But I also love finding new music.  I think the music I grew up with is amazing, but I also am enamored with some of today's hits.  I'm not sure the strangeness of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" will ever replace for me the weirdness of The Avalanches' "Frontier Psychiatry," nor the gorgeous sounds and video of Lorde's "Royals" will supplant Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", though I enjoy all four songs and artists.  But, then again, the beauty of Lindsey Sterling's violin and the honest reflection behind Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole's rhymes have set a new artistic standard in my mind.

Musical artists are the vehicles by which we enjoy music.  But don't confuse the vehicle for the destination.  Don't get so caught up in what you love that you forget why you love it.  The world is full of wondrous things.  Nostalgia can be comforting, but it can also become a prison.  Make sure, every once in a while, to unroot yourself, shake the dirt off your legs, and do something new.  Dancing and singing en route is not required, but it is highly recommended.