In The Lord of the Rings the effect of the One, ruling ring was to magnify the ego. So when Samwise puts on the ring, “All things around him were not dark but vague; while he himself was there in a grey hazy world, alone, like a small black solid rock.”325 Suffering can do that too; it can make you and your needs the only solid, real thing, and all other concerns vague, hazy, and unimportant.
