To find our long forgotten gold. 

I love Bilbo, too, but I feel that Frodo is sadly underestimated. The film portrayal doesn't help-- I'd like to remind everyone that ELijah Wood, with his giant eyes and contrived, breathy accent, is not Frodo. 

Frodo is actually about 50 years old by the time he sets out on his journey-- which means that in Hobbit-years, he is very fully grown. He's not young.

Frodo isn't all innocence and sweetness- he's very intelligent, and quite capable in many ways. The real Frodo would never, ever send Sam home and go of with Gollum-- he wouldn't even think of it. For one thing-- how would he expect Sam to be able to make it home by himself, without any supplies? For another thing, if Sam were actually hearing Gollum talking about how he's going to murder them, Frodo would believe him. And another, most important thing--Frodo never trusts Gollum, friend-to-friend-- he is always careful. His relationship with Gollum is based on the fact that, in Gollum, Frodo sees himself-- he sees what the Ring is making him.

Something that the films can't help but underplay is how horrible the Ring reeally is. Frodo isn't just carrying a pretty loop on a string that consumes you with desire for it-- he's bearing his own evil. That's what the Ring represents, after all. So Frodo is carrying this thing of darkness, and as he bears it, it is actively devouring the goodness and innocence that made him able to carry it in the first place. The Ring becomes a part of you-- and you can't run away from yourself.

So personally, I am able to connect with Frodo very well. He doesn't want to be there, on that shadowed, all-consuming road, any more than Bilbo wished to walk his less dangerous path-- any more than any of us would. And he has to make much more of a sacrifice than Bilbo does. When Bilbo has his adventure, he finds and develops more of himself. When Frodo has his, he must watch himself being twisted and eaten-- he loses himself, and everything he sets out to save. And he knows it.

So in the end, I suppose that we are all both Bilbo and Frodo-- always finding ourselves, and then sacrificing all we have found for those we love. Whenever we look around and find ourselves riddling with dragons, or burning beneath an all-consuming Eye, we will also find ourselves wishing for home and hearth and reading-chair. Sometimes we will regain those wonderful things, and sometimes not. But, whatever the situation, we should take heart from all the Hobbits, and Elves, and Dwarves, and Men, in our lives-- be grateful for our Sams, follow our Aragorns, trust our Gandalfs, just the way that both Bilbo and Frodo always did.