Tolkien over others

J. R. R. Tolkien is more than just a philologist and a fantasy writer.
To be perfectly honest with you, my fellow Barrow-Downers, he is like a father to me.
Despite the fact that I was born fourteen years after his death, I somehow feel that he is really here, teaching me the lore of life. I have never really understood the majesty of Sub-creation till after I came across him. As a devoted æsthete myself, I support his æsthetic and religious wisdom - his profound love for Art.
His way of expressing it is simply unmatched.

The moment I started reading The Lord of the Rings some years ago, I felt a revelation - something eerie stirred within my mind and heart, telling me that something remarkable is come.
After completing the Appendices, I longed for the events of the First Age. So not long afterwards, I received The Silmarillion. And my love-affair with Fantasy Literature shone in full glory, like the light of Telperion and Laurelin. And my primary hobby shifted from Drawing (which is now my secondary activity) to Writing.
He is the reason for the Fairy-stories I am working on.

After The Silmarillion, I managed to gather almost everything involving Tolkien. The books, the essays and the letters, I have read them all; and I say proudly that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is an example I follow, and will continue to follow.