There's a poem by Robert Frost, the last lines of which are frequently quoted, especially this time of year at graduations. Here's the entire poem, as it appeared in his 1920 collection Mountain Interval (it was the first poem in the book, and was italicized):

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.

The title of the poem is "The Road Not Taken." It is frequently mis-recalled as "The Road Less Traveled," as if the narrator had known from the outset that his path in life would be more rewarding because uncommon. But in the poem, when setting out he does not know which path will be less traveled--they "equally lay."

The poem is about memory and self-delusion. The narrator knows that he will eventually romanticize decisions he has made in his life, to justify those decisions.

But the conventional interpretation, taken from the frequent repetition of the last lines, supports a nostalgic view of American individualism--we might each be the mysterious stranger, following a unique and better destiny.

It is an attractive and widely-supported self-image. But it feeds the darker side of Libertarian politics. Self-serving individualism at the expense of a common good.

Daniel Boone is reputed to have maintained that when he saw smoke from another chimney, he knew it was time to move on. Perhaps he would have been better served to seek out the new neighbor and offer a greeting.

Dave Sagarin (May 3, 2013)

With thanks to Steve Sagarin