"I wish none of this had happened," Frodo says solemnly in the dark of Moria.
"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," Gandalf responds quietly.
It's a timeless conversation with infinite application.
I wish I never had Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I wish the wars and violence in the world had never started. I wish I had never developed the deep psychological scars from my car accident.
But it's not for me to decide what happens to me. I can do a lot of things for my health and safety and well-being, but there are no guarantees of success. There is no perfect world or system. There is pain and sorrow yet to be had.
So, is Gandalf's message encouraging? Discouraging? Futile?
Accessibility
The design of products or environments can either help or disparage people with disabilities. Accessibility is the attempt to design the things with which people interact in a way that allows people to effectively use the products or environments despite disability.
This could mean curb cuts on sidewalks, tactile paving, or ramps that lead into building entrances.
In web development, that means making sure that the site is still usable and helpful whether a visitor is sighted or non-sighted, whether they need reduced animations or effects, whether they are using a mouse or a keyboard or a screen reader to navigate.
It's one way that we can communicate that people matter.
Take this scene from The Fellowship of the Ring as an example of accessibility in the world of Middle Earth.
The hobbits approach a large gate. The gate keeper opens his window and, seeing that whoever knocked on the door is half the size of a typical man, opens another shorter window to be able to speak face to face with the hobbits.
The movie makes it feel like the hobbits are so out-of-place in this first environment of "Men."
Yet the town, in-universe, has apparently had enough experience with "halflings" or perhaps dwarves, that they've built ways to be able to interact with them safely through the gate.
Disability
Having grown up as an able-bodied person and then developing a disability later in life, I've realized there are a lot of ways I've been part of a system that marginalizes less-abled or disabled people.
Disclaimer: I can't speak for the disabled community as a whole—there are so many disabilities and ways that people talk about, identify, and deal with their specific situation. So this is coming from my view point, but with attempts to capture some of the perspectives of others that I've heard personally.
The word "disability" can be a scary one. Some people will identify directly with it: "I'm a disabled person." Some will accept it, but distance it: "I'm a person with a disability." Neither is wrong or right, better, or worse.
The problem with the word "disability" is that we've attached judgment to it for so long that it carries that same baggage. Instead of being afraid of the word or telling people how they should or shouldn't use it, I would hope that we can be more comfortable with it and its complexities.
As I have had to come to grips with my new reality—the one where MS is a part of my life and does affect me—I have had to accept disability. There are limits, there are problems, and to deny that is dishonest and psychologically harmful.
If we look back at The Lord of the Rings, there are themes of disability at play throughout the trilogy. The hobbits each express frustration and stress at the disabilities that come from their physical limitations in a Man-sized world.
Merry states in the last movie: "I know there is not much point now in hoping. If I were a knight of Rohan capable of great deeds…but I'm not. I'm a Hobbit. And I know I can't save Middle-Earth. I just want to help my friends."
They also experience prejudice, which in a way disables them as well. Regarding Merry's plea to fight alongside the riders of Rohan, Eomer says to his sister, "I do not doubt his heart, only the reach of his arm."
What to do when the odds continue to stack against you?
Acceptance
What strikes me about watching the series with the themes of disability in mind is that each hobbit not only expresses frustration or despair at some point, but they all eventually accept it, which allows them to progress.
That is something I find to be common in the disabled community.
There is no point in denying or pretending that our disabilities don't affect us. Messaging that ignores the reality of disability or even that tries to euphemize disability is often more harmful.
There's a fine line that we can waffle around when we try to empower others or ourselves in these complex circumstances.
What I have found to be helpful is to seek for honesty in my reality—a radical acceptance of how I am and what my life is like. Without it, I'm too trapped in the riptide of expectations getting dashed to pieces over and over again.
But I'm realizing there is also a need to have some hopes. Some expectations. If I ever want to keep going, there has to be some kind of hope.
I found Aragorn's character to be a little annoying in my most recent viewing of The Lord of the Rings, because he is so often Mr. "There is always hope." Even when the entire field of view of the camera is filled with orcs and beasts. Even when every advantage or potential alliance is fractured, Aragorn is the guy telling everyone that there is still hope.
Then, towards the end he has a tiny, despairing moment where it's implied he no longer believes his own platitudes. He falls to his knees and watches with watering eyes as yet another horde of Sauron's allies glide closer in pirate ships.
Aragorn's journey to this point has been under the surface of this forced positivity and it seems like this breaking point is where Aragorn moves to an acceptance of reality.
He ends up with a deus ex machina to win the battle at Gondor then does something unthinkable.
Just when an impossible battle was won, after impossible circumstances and impossible drain on human endurance or strength, Aragorn throws himself and his lingering armies of Men into one more futile situation.
Led to the Black Gate of Mordor, the Men and remaining members of the Fellowship stare down a massive army of orcs that surrounds and encircles their entire force.
Gandalf's words come back to me here: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
There has already been so much loss, grief, pain, sorrow. Why are they doing this?
This conflict is different than all of the others in the entire series. This is an offensive move. This is where the acceptance gets real and the hope also gets real.
The only reason to throw their lives away is the hope that it will be just enough for Frodo to destroy the Ring and truly end the real conflict.
Hope in the face of futility, fueled by radical acceptance.
Cyborg
Many of us face impossible circumstances where hope feels futile, where things are so hard that giving up feels like the only option left.
It is in those moments that we have to make decisions—perhaps decisions that cannot be made until the very end, forced by the circumstance.
Acceptance is a personal thing. You can't do it for someone else. Acceptance is a thing that feels like futility wins or that you are giving up. More often, it is that acceptance that actually moves us forward and reveals new paths.
Awareness is Aragorn's final lesson. That is something that we can do for others: see them, see their realities. Then do what you can to protect or amplify their humanity.