Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And, finding myself no Robert Frost,
I struck a third; I felt I should,
The pathless forest looked so good,
And soon I was well and truly… lost
I paused a moment to look around
And take some time to catch my breath…
I heard not one familiar sound,
And thought that I might not be found
Until I’d met my certain death
So… North and South and East and West
I no direction left un-tried.
With no one better than the rest,
Til cold night came, and, poorly dressed,
I caught a chill and promptly died.
If you look for me now, you’ll find me dead
Just one more hiker that didn’t make it…
Cos I didn’t like where Two Roads led–
Remember what Yogi Berra said:
If you come to a fork in the road… take it.
On NPR today, the Diane Rehm show noted that this month is the 100th anniversary of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”. It was a good listen, noting some interesting misinterpretations and interpretations of the poem. All I will say is, this is not the first parody of it I have written, though it might be the only one still available on the intertubes.
I have a copy of a Robert Frost book on my shelf, that once belonged to one of my profs, who himself had found it among many discarded books in a Harvard hallway. My prof used “The Road Not Taken” as his metaphor for evolution; a decision, trivial at the time, might actually make a world of difference “ages and ages hence”. The NPR crew sees a conflict between our culture’s fiction of “your choices ‘make all the difference'” and Frost’s “both that morning equally lay” (noting only in future hindsight “with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence” that a particular choice made “all the difference”).
Is it that every choice matters? Is it that choices do not matter except in hindsight? Do we choose freely, or do we justify our determined “choices”? I have my own suspicions, of course, but the cool thing is that Robert Frost wrestled with these issues a hundred years ago, in verse. No, in really incredibly fucking marvelous verse that works on multiple levels.
Tangentially Related: Rending Wall (Frost is a powerful muse, it would appear)
More like every choice may matter. Every moment of every day we’re all making choices, where not choosing is itself a choice.
Obviously not, unless one imagines no choice one may make matters not until after it’s made.
False dichotomy; both can be true.
I’m not versed in verses, but I do know it’s far easier to allude than to specify.
Thanks Cuttlefish.
I just spent a pleasant period reading Frost.
Now I’m off to your older posts.
every choice may matter
So, it may not. Which means not every choice does.
obviously not
Glad it’s obvious to someone; Ms. Rehm’s guests spent quite some time on this, noting that our culture’s fascination with “free will” makes a mythology out of the importance of our choices. In reality, “both that morning equally lay, in leaves no step had trodden black”, and it is absolutely possible (as your first answer alludes) that it would make no difference at all, except in an imagined future hindsight. Again, the guests were in agreement that our usual interpretation of this poem is quite different from Frost’s intended message.
False dichotomy; both can be true
For some definitions of choosing freely. For others, free choice is an illusion, but one that makes us feel quite special.
easier to allude than to specify
Honestly, as someone who has written a few thousand verses, I strongly disagree. It is much easier to be concrete, and to belabor a point. At least it is for me. Seriously, take a long look through my archives, and you may see that it is precisely this that makes Frost Frost and Cuttlefish… Cuttlefish.
Just as a bit of trivia concerning Frost, his poem “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening” can be sung to the tune of “Hernando’s Hideaway”.
You are an evil human being, Al Dente.