Today is Hobbit Day, an event where nerds like me honor the birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins from Professor J.R.R. Tolkien's classic works, "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." For years, I attended a Hobbit Day party hosted by a family friend, Papa Z, who loved Tolkien more than I do. He'd make good food — including plenty of mushrooms — and read from one of the books.
It was a day of fellowship and fun.
Happy Hobbit Day pic.twitter.com/6a56R1xUD0
— Nerdrotic (@Nerdrotics) September 22, 2026
Sadly, Papa Z left us a few years ago, and I miss those parties. But today is also a day to remember some of the lessons the Professor imparted to us in his works, especially bravery, perseverance, and sacrifice.
Frodo, having gotten the One Ring from Bilbo, finds himself tasked with carrying that burden across Middle-earth to the fires of Mount Doom. He doesn't want to, but he knows he's the only one who can.
A very happy anniversary to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, published on this day in 1937.
— Cian McCarthy (@arealmofwonder) September 21, 2026
Here he is recounting its origins... pic.twitter.com/GyrdARXKJd
He's accompanied by eight others, including his fellow Hobbits Samwise, Peregrin, and Meriadoc. An unremarkable, diminutive race, no one expected the Hobbits to amount to much in the world of Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs.
In the end, only Frodo and Sam make it to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring and save the world from Sauron and the forces of darkness.
Sometimes things feel pretty bleak in reality, with the rise of the DSA, the Democrats vowing lawfare against Republicans and their voters, and Islamists taking over Western nations.
Tolkien wrote his books with the specter of WWI hanging over him. While not a direct allegory for the Great War, most of Tolkien's closest friends were killed during the war. Tolkien also based Sam on enlisted soldiers he knew during the war.
In the end, Sam is the hero of the book. Not the brave warrior men, not the Elves. Not the Dwarves. Not the wizard Gandalf. The Hobbit who worked as a gardener. Humble, unassuming, but hardworking and fiercely loyal. The Shire reflected the English countryside: idyllic, peaceful, focused on hard work, good food, and togetherness.
Of course, the Left hates Tolkien and routinely classifies his works as "white supremacist" or "racist." Amazon's attempted to bastardize them with "The Rings of Power" – a show I will never watch, and I saw "Fellowship of the Ring" 27 times in the theatre in 2002.
I take two big lessons from those works, and they resonate with me during stressful, difficult times.
The first is when Frodo laments that he has the One Ring.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
I have lived through a lot. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War, September 11, the second Gulf War, COVID. But I can't change that — none of us can. All we can do is live our lives and fight for what we believe is right.
The other lesson comes from Sam.
"It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
And that's what I remind myself. There's good in this world — the people I love, chief among them — and those things are worth fighting for.
That's why I do what I do and believe what I believe. With the midterms looming and the future uncertain, I will keep fighting because there's so much good worth defending.
