The road not taken...

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost)

Is life like a stream, flowing onward, carrying us allong will ye, nil ye--sometimes we float peacefully, sometimes we swim against the current--with all of our past carried into a single future? The simile holds true in many respects, yet ignores any conception of "free will", of the idea that we as conizent biengs have the ability and the opportunity to decide our own paths, to choose which road to take. This is a philosophic question, and I am not a philosopher: that I leave to Nietzsche and Rand.

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character. (Ayn Rand [1905 - 1982], Atlas Shrugged)

My point is, to look at any individual (you, me, anybody, right?), their life, their current position in the cosmic scheme of things--whatever that may be--was determined by a series of choices this individual has made. To imagine that one single choice made differently would alter this individual's entire existance is staggering. Some decisions that seem trivial at the time end up having extensive external effects--whether or not to apply for something may determine your later career, chance meetings may turn into marriages. To trace any given fact back to the deciding moment is impossible, but to say I live in Germany now because I somehow couldn't get into a French class in the 9th grade is not an inappropriate generalization. Of course many other factors contribute both to the decisions themselves and the externalities and "side effects" they have for our our lives, and we must make these decisions in either utter or considerable ignorance of these other factors. Though we are not deciding the rules of a society, as in Rawls' example, we must decide today something whose consequences will be known only at a later date.

This isn't necessarily a comforting thought; this is like playing cards in relative ignorance of the rules, not knowing if the cards you've been dealt are good or bad. I doubt if it is possible to stack the deck; those with "good cards" don't necessarily end up successful; those without may end up millionaires, and even (or particularly) millionaires may end up unhappier than the beggar on the corner--because money can only rent happiness.

If we continue with the river analogy, except adding branches, choicepoints where we may go left or right or straight--we must assume here that time is linear, and that choosing one path excludes in most cases all others--we arrive at a different picture, the analogy used by science fiction writers to creat the plot line, when time travellers manage to muck up the past and thereby destroy the future.

So, my decision to spend this afternoon lying on my back on the grass may have consequences, but whatever they are, I'll take them as they come. If, as Frost implies, doing things a bit differently and going your own way puts you on the right (not left :P) path, that leads (bad pun) us only to the question if there is such a thing as a correct path...