ABOUT ME

Randir is a Sindarin word meaning “wandering man, pilgrim”, or “wanderer” (Tolkien Gateway).

There exists a movie trilogy that has greatly shaped how I see the world. It is a movie I’d see whenever I was sick as a child, or rather, when I pretended I was sick so I could stay home and watch it. I have shed tears and got goosebumps watching this movie at more or less every stage of my life.

This trilogy is based on one of the most-respected books not only of fantasy genre, but of the whole world of fiction. Its author has successfully infused a high-fantasy story with analogies of the human life, its highs and lows, struggles and aspirations, deepest fears and strongest loves. In some sense, just as the Russian giants of Realism like Tolstoy and Dostoyevski, it tells a story of life in its totality, albeit in a fantastical setting.

The Lord of the Rings is fantasy in its purest sense, a clear escape from reality that tells us of epic events and mythical creatures.

Now, what does this have to do with my blog?

I do not write fantasy, yet what I am trying to do is infuse the reality with it. I am a helpless romanic, and cannot help but create a story out of my own life, events lived, landscapes seen and people encountered.

Endlessly, I am trying to make sense of it all. This has brought me great joy in life, however, it has also brought me pain and constant struggles, as I try hard to understand, even when there is really nothing to understand.

Reality seems to me an incomprehensible event that keeps on rolling without mercy. As such, to stop and try to grasp it is a dangerous game. As Alan Watts put it:

“Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To “have” running water you must let go of it and let it run.”

What is writing if not walking off with a river in a bucket? We struggle to concieve the inconceivable, and to understand when there is nothing to understand. However, can we truly let go of our efforts? Being human, trying to understand might as well be going with the flow of the river. 

Ever since my first experiences of travelling I have struggled to put into words the emotional impact and the meaning of these experiences. Retelling it verbally would rob the experience of its complexity, alienating it into a simplified, blunt form of wheres and whens, in the end only falling on deaf ears.

At some point, I understood that with writing I actually stood a chance of paying a worthy tribute to these experiences. The complex process of constructing the narrative allowed a greater freedom of expression. With it, I can navigate between the internal and external, travel through time, and re-visit places.

Why Randir? 

As to pay an homage to my childhood inspiration, I have looked for a suitable elvish word for my pseudonim. My name is Demir, and I felt like DemiRandir rolls of the tongue quite easily.

I am by no means a great traveller. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who have travelled a great deal more than me. It is neither my life goal to visit every country or every continent and to tick all of those coutries off my bucket list. Yet, I have a thing for an adventure, and they await at every corner no matter how close we are to home.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”