/lit/ - Literature

>>3244156 here

Let me put it in a different way. I think two things are getting in the way.

1. There is no precise thing that you can objectively check to see if it works. The only thing that is precise are the words themselves (ie my edition of LotR is the same as yours, with the same disposition of pages and so on), but the meaning of each and every one of those words is not precise. Meaning is a relationship, you only understand the words you think you understand because you relate them to other times you saw them. Now imagine that for the whole theme of a book. Whatever emotions, thoughts, interpretations you have for a book, they are connected by your personal experience. And so what you took from the book, what you understood, what you think is obvious is not an actual thing, it's your relationship to it.

2. There is no "correct". You are still pressing on correct. Reading a text is not about finding out what the author meant, but what those words mean. And those words mean what you perceive them to mean. The reason we might get mad "how come this interpretation has as much space as this other one?!" is only there if we think the guy who did the interpretation was talking about what Tolkien meant or whatever. That's not the point.

>>3244164
Ask >>3244153 for what he saw instead. He said Frodo resembles a popular player in behavior, do you deny that? And why? Now you two can discuss it.

PS: Posting joyful gif as well. It really lightens things up in a discussion.

You guys are all selfish fags who worry too much about "self-improvement", if things could only be seen as improvement any way.

Intelligence is a matter of potential, intelligence cannot be quantified or measured, it's not something that you have stored, it's something that only exists as it is put into use. Like having the fastest car stuck in a garage. Well, then it's not the fastest car, it's the most still car that ever existed. To wanting so much to be or appear intelligent is to give value too much attention to the car and not to the ride.

And happiness as we all know is just part of the whole thing, it's as temporary as sadness is. Happiness is not friend with desire, I'd say, once you are happy, you don't want, once you are not so happy, you want and you move. But we flow from one to the other all the time, we are never fully satisfied, but also we cannot cope with all desire and no fullfilment at any point.

That's why I see so many people agreeing that intelligence doesn't go with happiness. You think too much, desire to control things too much, you want to understand before you live, you want to know before you experience and that is just a recipe for disaster, for frustrating desires that never reach anything. That is, by the very fact that one sees happiness and intelligence as a black and white dicotomy is what makes the dichotomy true. If you take it lightly, it will be lightly. Only a sith deals in absolutes.

>you'll never be one of the Friends