The word for "cycle" and "zodiac" in Latin is ċircul, which is derived from kírkos, or "ring" in Ancient Greek. The Latin word for "circular path" or "hoop" or "closed system" is circulus. Right there, we have three related terms that refer to an endless, cyclical transit, or maybe a bound transit. Makes me think about that phrase, "there and back again." Makes me think about Frodo's journey to Mt. Doom. The Old Norse word for "ring" is hringr, and the word for "encircle" is hringja. To hold, to control. If it's your duty to hold something, you are bound to it, in a sense.
Frodo's mission to take the ring to Mt. Doom is a kind of metaphor that we have need for at almost every moment of our lives because we are always susceptible to anger, guilt, doubt, paranoia and all the rest of our less desired feelings. For as blessed as we are, we are truly troubled creatures. Whenever we hold on to our anger (take Gimli for example) or our doubt (Frodo, Aragorn), it creates a ring. The ring offers power and strength. Anger motivates. From doubt and paranoia comes clever and long-lasting protective strategies, but through them we become outsiders.
This goes all the way back to the first paragraphs of the Silmarillion. While the Valar practice collectivism and harmony with Ilúvatar, Melkor explores the darkness on his own. When he reunites with the Valar, he finds that he rejects their unity and finds strength and power in his rejection. It's simply a reality of socialization that we cannot all approach each other in the same ways. In some cases, the disunity will be sufficient to generate something like a narcissistic personality.
This is the central issue Tolkien addressed as a writer, in my opinion. What are we to do with the narcissists in our midst? And his answer is inconclusive. He leaves us with this metaphor: The ring of power. Any being on Middle Earth can hold on to it, but none will possess it. Your only options are to give in and hold it until it eats you from the inside or take it to the fires from which it was forged.
Facing our darker, more violent impulses is hard enough. We must stare deeply enough into that violence to know it and still commit to change. Frodo has the strength to do this once over the course of three books, but we all must do this every day, every free moment, in order to clear the space for those around us and prepare ourselves likewise for times when we're alone and times when we're together. Every frustration, every fearful thought, is a ring of power. To reconcile the mountain and the shire, we have to walk the whole of Middle Earth and unite our most hopeful, innocent selves with our most sensitive, introspective selves in order to prevent self-destruction, self-harm. Lord of the Rings is a thesis that shows us how our failure to walk our feelings all the way to the mountain is where grief and woe at a global scale originates.
