“J.R.R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors, and eventually he grows sick and dies, leaving his painting unfinished. As he navigates the afterlife, he finds that much of his character is judged by how he navigated the ‘distractions,’ which were not really distractions at all. But in both the world he left behind and the world ahead, the portion of the painting he did complete (a single leaf) had greater significance than he realized.
More than once, I’ve discussed this story, called ‘Leaf, by Niggle,’ with friends who nodded sagely and observed: ‘Yes, the moral of the story is that the ordinary things—the ‘distractions’—are what really matters in life.’ But I don’t think that’s what Tolkien hoped his readers would glean. I think what Tolkien wanted to explore was something deeper. There are no ordinary things.”
~Brian Brown
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