The Ring-Shaped Heart of Sauron
For Sauron, there was too much chaos in the Music of Iluvatar that included messy freedom.
Sauron was a Maiar whom Melkor seduced into evil in ages past. Sauron’s passion and obsession was order for he had little tolerance for chaos. Nor did he care for The Music of Iluvatar because the Music included chaos and embraced free will.
In Sauron’s mind, chaos is incompatible with order.
He hated the idea of Men and Elves messing up the world with their free will. He had his own ideas about how to impose order and ensure peace and prosperity.
Free will is too messy, too unpredictable, too chaotic.
For Sauron, there was too much chaos in the Music of Iluvatar that included messy freedom. He rejected it because he didn’t understand it. Eventually, his heart became Ring-shaped. A thing closed upon itself.
His world became round – a never-ending circle. A lidless eye. A “bent world.” A rat race of life. A bad infinity. An endless repetition of the same – like butter scraped over too much bread.
Like the Ring, Sauron’s world became enclosed upon itself. He grasped for order at the expense of trust and created a bad infinity, the non-stop repetition of the same, a rat race of life, never coming to the destination.
Tolkien says that Arda itself became round after Sauron had lured the Numenorians into making the rings of power. Arda’s roundness became its curse – the consequence of leaving the “Straight Way.”
Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and starcraft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round…
The great mariners of men were still trying to find the Straight Way to the Blessed Realm (Valinor) but soon found that all roads were bent. There was no longer a Straight Way to the blessed realm geographically. All roads were going in circles.
Yet, some said there was still a mighty invisible bridge stretched between Arda and the Blessed Realm. The only way to get to the Deathless shores was to find that bridge, which was the Straight Way.
The way of letting go. The way of diminishing.
Only some are permitted to find it.
Boromir found it by letting go of the Ring in his heart and embracing the unknown (entrusting the fate of Gondor to Providence).
Gandalf found it by going into Moria and accepting his lot – falling into the chasm of the unknown.
Aragorn found it by taking the way of the dead – by stepping into the unknown.
Frodo found it by allowing Gollum to live and guide them – and embracing the chaos of the unknown.
Sauron didn’t find it because he hated the unknown. He hated the Chaos of the Great Music. He refused to trust.
Tolkien wrote in The Silmarillion,
“The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world.”
