Hope, dangles on a string, like slow spinning redemption.

The list is in reverse order, going from enceinte to breathtaking.

10.
Galadriel: I give you the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

9.
Gandalf: A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

8.
Galadriel: The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it

7.

Gandalf: The battle of Helm’s Deep is over; the battle for Middle Earth is about to begin.

6.
Theoden: Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?

5.
Aragorn: Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!*

4.
Arwen: From the ashes, a fire shall be woken. A light from the shadow shall spring. Renewed shall be blade that was broken. The crownless again shall be king.

3.
Gollum: The thieves. The thieves. The filthy little thieves. Where is it? Where is it? They stole it from us. My precious. Curse them. We hates them. It’s ours, it is, and we wants it.

2 .
Pippin: I didn’t think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path… One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass… And then you see it. Pippin: What? Gandalf?… See what?
Gandalf: White shores… and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
Pippin: Well, that isn’t so bad.
Gandalf: No… No it isn’t.

1.
Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in 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 had 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 will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in 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 had 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 will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.

Sometimes I am inclined to believe that I’ve hit the limitations of my abilities, and by ‘hit’ I mean to say that I’ve crashed into the glass ceiling of potential at 500 km/h without so much as leaving a scratch on the glass. This may not be in a strictly academic sense, since, as we all know, there is an infinitely vast pool of talents and skills of which academia only makes up a small portion of; but as it is my life so far has been pretty much pivoted around the fixture of grades and qualifications thus making it both the motivation and bane of my existence. Like everyone else, I too lie awake in the dead of the night, staring into the blackness of room – looking inwardly first at the growing heap of failed attempts, followed by the weariness of defeat, and finally perniciously hovering above the borders of philosophical justification; sinking in a sort of twisted, logical excuse for personal flaws. I wonder why it is so much easier to take the blame for all that has gone wrong as opposed to blowing my trumpet and taking credit for all that has gone right. In fact, it’s difficult recalling anything at all from the latter.

Yet when I venture to think beyond academics, I am almost always in the danger of being subdued by melancholy. When I think about my background and all the experiences that have contributed to both the good and bad of my character, I am unsure whether I should fall over myself laughing at the absurdity of some events, or weep with a deep and sudden stab of desolation; knowing that I could never communicate the real effect of these experiences to even my closest companions, and realising that it wouldn’t make a difference to them or me even if I could. Bounded up with my desire for complete understanding is the contradicting need for complete secrecy; which probably explains why I am always compelled to spill weepy, long-winded confessions to trusted friends, but stop short of revealing the details of events and experiences that have actually mattered in the past 20 years and beyond. I used to think it was because some memories do hurt you quite a bit when you begin to speak about them with other people, but I’ve also realised that none of these things matter outside my life or mind, and the only reason I would speak about them is to indirectly attract some sort of undeserved sympathy that would excuse my failures.

Whatever I’ve just written may very well apply to anybody. I don’t dismiss the silent inner battles that are waged by every individual walking in the streets, neither do I underestimate nor overestimate them. I do not write to champion the cause of the downtrodden, the marginalised or the twenty-somethings who thought they’d be doing a bit more with their life than flicking through Facebook profiles while continually asking themselves what are they doing with their lives. I write all this because it is an instinct, and because I feel that there is no other medium in which I express myself better than in the written or typed word. As to whether I could eventually go on making a living out of doing something I feel comfortable doing, or whether I will keep on writing ’till the end of (my) time is something I ask myself from time to time, but for now I am simply compiling bits and parts of myself on this space.