My precious, on April 12

Gandalf reaches Hobbiton to warn Frodo about the Ring, and so begins their quest to destroy that all-powerful icon for evil. If Middle Earth translated to our age, I wonder what that ring would be? Is it money, the root of all evil, which we must take to the nearest incinerator and destroy like so many leaves of autumn? Is it the worldwide arsenal of nuclear weapons and its dark threshold of nihilistic possibility? Or is it something even deeper and much more unforgiving? Like self-knowledge of death and the resultant need for an eternal love potion of power. Ah, this is much too deep for me. Like my old downstairs neighbor Jim, a retired fireman who had fought one too many fires, would say, I need "a shot of cheap hot whiskey" after all this foolosophizing.