An open note to younger Entmoot members

[Alcuin]

Entmoot is a small forum, but a great place with great people. I won’t be here much for a while: I have to work, and I’ve spent too much time here over the years. But I have some observations for younger people who come to Entmoot.

First, this is a great place to find out about JRR Tolkien and his work.

• Don’t worry about asking something someone has asked before. Every new Tolkien reader has a lot of the same questions, and those questions need to be asked and answered over and over. Frankly, when an older reader says, “That’s an old question,” he’s showing off. Ask anyway: the other older readers will delight in telling you more than you probably wanted to know. If you don’t ask, they don’t get the chance, so ask!
• Never hesitate to post a question or comment. That’s what forums are for! Without your questions and posts, the forum will dry up and blow away, and that would be a shame. Make up a silly (or serious) screen name and ask questions. No one knows who you are anyway, so there’s no reason to be embarrassed.
• The person who started Entmoot was eleven years old when it began. Ben Milder is a big-time securities lawyer these days (and a good one, I understand), but when he started Entmoot, he was younger than most of you. This is your place to participate and ask questions and post answers.
• Don’t be upset if someone disagrees with you.
• Sometimes people get cross. They get over it. We’ll all get over it. You can have an argument with someone you like and love, and tomorrow, you can still like and love them. That’s part of life: it’s part of being human. Realizing you don’t have to agree is an important part of growing up, because you’ll eventually learn that there’s no one you always agree with, not even yourself. (That last is a bit of a mystery, but you’ll find out soon enough that it’s true.)
• Don’t call names if you can help it. You usually can. With a little thought, you can always find a better way to rebut their arguments, even if you’re wrong; and there are a lot better insults than the “nyah-nyah-nyah” of political sloganeering.

One more thing: Try to learn to think for yourself. Have your own opinions. There’s nothing wrong with an opinion, but it should be grounded upon reason. Oftentimes teachers in schools, and especially professors at universities, will tell you, “Question everything.” What they often mean is, “Question everything except me and my opinions. Otherwise, I’ll give you a bad grade.” These people can’t be trusted. You should question everything. You’re supposed to have doubts; otherwise, you’d have no cause to find out what’s really going on.

Many of you are going into that stage of life when you’ll find out your parents aren’t perfect people. It’s called being a teenager, and it’s accompanied by a surge in hormones that, in all honesty, makes you a little crazy. Cut your parents some slack. Realize they’re human beings, too, but older and more beat-up and more cynical than you. Don’t discount what they tell you just because they’re your parents, or because they tell you the same things every day or several times a day. There’s an old saying, Don’t tear down a fence until you know why it was put there. In some places, it’s against the law to tear down a stone wall for that reason: it marks property lines, if nothing else. When you do something or say something, there is often a consequence, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. The hardest things to do have good but unpleasant consequences. Normally, your parents want you to avoid unpleasant consequences. Think about what you’re doing and what the consequences are before you do it. It’s like chess: try to think three or four or more moves ahead. You’ll still be surprised, but it won’t be as bad as just jumping in without looking.

One place you don’t have to look too far ahead is Entmoot. You can ask, reply, make comments, and suffer few if any bad consequences. The worst that will happen is that some old crotchety poster (like me) will throw a little fit, with no harm to you at all. This is a great place to practice your skills – and a wonderful place to learn about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.