The Road
Robert Frost is credited with authoring the poem "The road not taken". The poem is profound in its simplicity and more than hints at the duality of life. There are two roads in essence, both with competing alluring qualities. The persona who is characterized as a weary traveler, deliberates on which road to take and finally takes the road that is less traveled.
There's much to say regarding the duality of life. The ideas behind right or wrong, ying/yang, good and bad and so on. You could also argue that the poem is rather a simplification of the idea of choice in real life as it only alludes to only two alternatives. Its either one or the other.
If only the choices we face everyday were as simple as choosing between two roads. Instead one is more likely in reality to be faced with a myriad of choices, sometimes with a dazzling array of possibilities laid down before each choice. The eventual choice then is more likely to be a function of an equally dazzling array of factors such as, what one's mood is, their immediate pressing need, the resources that hinge on a particular choice and so on and so forth.
This poem is about choice just as it is about the depiction life as a journey, or the theme of the road. It is a theme that you find revisited time and again in the writings of Wole Soyinka for example. He refers to it in his second volume of memoirs "You Must Set Forth at Dawn", ruminates on it in his collection of poems "Sarmakand and Other Markets I have Known"and is somewhere lurking in the background in his other anthology "Mandela's Earth and Other Poems". The Bible as well has its fair share of "the road" motifs.
A childhood friend of mine Jasper Hatilima, an engineer and lecturer at the University of Zambia, springs to mind every time my mind veers in the direction of choice, life as a journey and similar themes. We both grew up in the idyllic surroundings of a place seven kilometres South of Chongwe town which we all knew as Chalimbana. The name of the place drawn from the Chalimbana river and the teacher training college which occupied such prominence in the area. Growing up, Chalimbana was a melting pot of different academic influences. You had the teacher training college of course, occupying the most space, its giant hall not only a venue for social functions, but allowing us that rare distinction at the time, to go and watch television. There was Chalimbana basic school, at which school Jasper would make a clean sweep of the individual academic prizes in his class with such boring regularity. In addition, a local government training institute closely followed by an agricultural training institute straddled the rocky terrain on one side and was flanked by the Chalimbana river on the other side.
Slightly over six months ago we met at the University of Zambia. I had gone to meet my PhD supervisor Dr Bwalya. The meeting having dispensed with I decided to take a walk round campus no doubt with the hope of drinking in the unmistakable assault of nostalgia I always get each time I visit the University of Zambia. And there he was, my friend Jasper. As simple as simplicity itself. He complimented me on my suit, making me feel even more overdressed.
We talked about the roads we never took. Unlike Frost, the choice often wasn't between two roads. It was many roads. Our imaginations were molded by the huge expanses of Chalimbana, were we played swam and read.
So why not take all the roads you wanted to explore? we asked.
Obviously our human condition, limits us to only one road at a time. But then why not explore other roads once you have explored what lies on one road. As long as you retain the interest, it is never too late to embark on a certain road. I have always had a certain indefatigable restless spirit. I am never really one to scale a height and then linger on admiring the view. It has always been about what the next mission is and so on and so forth.
So from me to you, take that road and when done, take another road and another and another. Your life will be richer for it.
There's much to say regarding the duality of life. The ideas behind right or wrong, ying/yang, good and bad and so on. You could also argue that the poem is rather a simplification of the idea of choice in real life as it only alludes to only two alternatives. Its either one or the other.
If only the choices we face everyday were as simple as choosing between two roads. Instead one is more likely in reality to be faced with a myriad of choices, sometimes with a dazzling array of possibilities laid down before each choice. The eventual choice then is more likely to be a function of an equally dazzling array of factors such as, what one's mood is, their immediate pressing need, the resources that hinge on a particular choice and so on and so forth.
This poem is about choice just as it is about the depiction life as a journey, or the theme of the road. It is a theme that you find revisited time and again in the writings of Wole Soyinka for example. He refers to it in his second volume of memoirs "You Must Set Forth at Dawn", ruminates on it in his collection of poems "Sarmakand and Other Markets I have Known"and is somewhere lurking in the background in his other anthology "Mandela's Earth and Other Poems". The Bible as well has its fair share of "the road" motifs.
A childhood friend of mine Jasper Hatilima, an engineer and lecturer at the University of Zambia, springs to mind every time my mind veers in the direction of choice, life as a journey and similar themes. We both grew up in the idyllic surroundings of a place seven kilometres South of Chongwe town which we all knew as Chalimbana. The name of the place drawn from the Chalimbana river and the teacher training college which occupied such prominence in the area. Growing up, Chalimbana was a melting pot of different academic influences. You had the teacher training college of course, occupying the most space, its giant hall not only a venue for social functions, but allowing us that rare distinction at the time, to go and watch television. There was Chalimbana basic school, at which school Jasper would make a clean sweep of the individual academic prizes in his class with such boring regularity. In addition, a local government training institute closely followed by an agricultural training institute straddled the rocky terrain on one side and was flanked by the Chalimbana river on the other side.
Slightly over six months ago we met at the University of Zambia. I had gone to meet my PhD supervisor Dr Bwalya. The meeting having dispensed with I decided to take a walk round campus no doubt with the hope of drinking in the unmistakable assault of nostalgia I always get each time I visit the University of Zambia. And there he was, my friend Jasper. As simple as simplicity itself. He complimented me on my suit, making me feel even more overdressed.
We talked about the roads we never took. Unlike Frost, the choice often wasn't between two roads. It was many roads. Our imaginations were molded by the huge expanses of Chalimbana, were we played swam and read.
So why not take all the roads you wanted to explore? we asked.
Obviously our human condition, limits us to only one road at a time. But then why not explore other roads once you have explored what lies on one road. As long as you retain the interest, it is never too late to embark on a certain road. I have always had a certain indefatigable restless spirit. I am never really one to scale a height and then linger on admiring the view. It has always been about what the next mission is and so on and so forth.
So from me to you, take that road and when done, take another road and another and another. Your life will be richer for it.
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 1874-1963
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