There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow. — Fellowship of the Ring

My Take – Somewhere in every person’s personality, no matter their gender, age, or situation, is the trigger that will get them to protect themselves and those that are important to them.  The problem with waiting until that trigger is tripped in the real world is that they may not have the tools and skills necessary to make that urge more than a vain attempt at survival.  Taking the time now to consider the likely things that can happen, be they natural disasters like a tornado or a hurricane, or just a guy in the parking lot with a gun and a hankering for what’s yours, will help you find the lines you will not back over and give you the time to develop your skills, attitudes, and toolsets to deal with them.  It could mean putting together your 72 hour kits.  It could mean getting weapons and training along with the licenses to carry and use them.  Or it could just be looking yourself in the mirror and saying “I am responsible for me and mine, and I will do whatever it takes now to make sure we are OK when the worst happens.”, and then following through.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. — The Hobbit

My Take – I used to hear “But this is a nice neighborhood!” or “Nobody around here would hurt a fly!”.  Then homes and cars started getting burglarized.  The convenience store up the road got its nickname “Stop-n-Stab” after the third or fourth time it got robbed.

What people are awakening to is that, even though we live in a perfectly nice place, jerks and goblins have cars, and sometimes perfectly nice people just go bonkers and start hurting other people.  Planning to stop being aware of what goes on around you because you’re in a “safe area” is nothing more than sticking your head in the ground.

Likewise, the notion that two oceans protect us from the dragons of the world has been invalid for as long as I can remember.  Policies that boil down to “If we’re nice to everyone, then they’ll be nice to us” are naive, no matter who we deal with.  There are people who just want to watch the world burn, and are more than happy to use us as fuel.  The only good policy toward such ilk is to target and eliminate them as messily and publicly as possible.

‘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.’ — Fellowship of the Ring

My Take – When bad things are happening, it is a normal human reaction to look around yourself and say “I wish this wasn’t happening”.  But that is a thought that leads to nowhere.  It is difficult to do sometimes, but taking a rational look at the world, figuring out what the real problems are, and finding ways to either live through them or succeed in spite of them makes life easier in the long run.

A nation that denies that bad people exist in the world and that those bad actors want to cause harm is in denial and will pay for it.

Put another way, the people I know who use up all of their energy dealing with their own drama are the same ones who refuse to find and change the causes of that drama.

Either way, denial may be the only thing more expensive than regret.