In keeping with the topic of change and impermanence, I’d like to take a closer look at one of the most quoted poems of all time. I refer to the “The road not taken”, a poem by Robert Frost that is more commonly, and mistakenly, referred to as “The road less traveled”. The mistake stems from the portion of the poem that is most quoted -

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Shorn of their context, these lines hang in the air like some vacuous inspirational slogan, vaguely self-congratulatory in tone. Here, look at me, I took the road less traveled by, and look where it got me, they seem to say. And indeed this is the most accepted meaning of these lines. It is precisely in this sense that these lines have been quoted in wall hangings and self-help books, in greeting cards and wrapping paper; they have been repeated and reproduced until they have been leached of any semblance of their original meaning. Even the most profound truths will be reduced to inanity by endless (and mindless) repetition – witness the “Serenity Prayer” – and so it has been with this poem as well.

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