I originally wrote this entry two days ago. Even though I'm just now posting it, I've decided not to change the day references. Here's the original post.
I am writing this while sitting in the C terminal of the Nashville International Airport (BNA), awaiting my return flight home to Chicago. I left the Windy City yesterday morning and flew into Nashville, my home of eight years, to attend a birthday party for a friend from my grad school days. Because I was really uncertain whether or not my work schedule would allow me the luxury of this 31 hour trip, I didn't let anyone except for the folks directly tied to the party know that I was coming. (Sorry to any of my peeps in Nashville who were left unaware of my incursion!) Having not taken a real break from working since last October, I worked my ass off to make sure this trip would happen. In fact, to take care of things in the lab so that I could get out of town I went into the lab before dawn yesterday and I will go directly to work once I've dropped my bags off at my apartment this afternoon. But I needed this little break to recharge my dwindling spirits.
Although I was genuinely looking forward to it, I was a bit apprehensive about this trip. The friend whose birthday we were celebrating had arranged this party, and I was glad for him to have done it. Despite this I knew it might be awkward because this friend now lives on the West Coast and had several largely separate groups of friends in Nashville, representatives of each having been invited to the party. I was reasonably sure that, as in the days when we all lived in Nashville, this party would operate such that friends from each of the three circles would socialize mostly with the other members of their own cliques, and the host would have to spend his time vascillating amongst the various constituencies. The other possible downside was having to see a couple of folks on the invite list whom, frankly, I could go for a long time without seeing or speaking with. Despite these misgivings I came anyway because of the allure of seeing a couple of folks who, because of various circumstances, I have been unable to see for quite some time. And the relatively balmy temperatures in Nashville seemed particularly inviting given the miserable dregs of winter Chicago seems unable to shake off.
When I arrived in Nashville, my friend from Philadelphia came to the airport to retrieve me, and we spent the afternoon together, having lunch with another friend from New York and my best friend from college who now lives in Atlanta. After lunch my friend from Atlanta and I participated in a ritual leftover from our college days: the two of us go to clothing stores, I select outfits for her to buy, and then she leaves better dressed than when she arrived. We both admitted this exercise was a bit more fun when her parents were footing the bill, but we appreciated spending quality time together in the women's fashion aisles of several large department stores.
Finally the time came for us to go to the birthday shindig. We arrived and, at first, it felt as if the previous three years had not passed. Warm hugs were exchanged all around, everyone commented about how good everyone else looked - a mostly credible claim - and we all went inside. In a few minutes, though, everyone reverted to type and we spent the next couple of hours standing around in our old cliques, talking about old times, comparing everyone's current boyfriend to his former boyfriend and commenting about how everyone really looked. My Philadelphia friend walked around and chatted with members of each different group. This is truly one of his strengths, this ability to mingle amongst various social groups. The other friends and I mostly wondered why we were there.
The friend from Atlanta was in a unique situation from the rest of us, because she was really only friends with me. She knew my friend from Philly, but I was her entree into the group. As we sat, waiting for my New York friend to drag the friend from Philly away from two bears who were card-carrying and pistol-toting NRA members, I said to my friend from Atlanta that this weekend had served as a good reminder of why good things aren't meant to last. The friends from Philly and New York, as well as the one whose birthday we were celebrating, were the last remnants of a large group of friends I hung out with in the middle years of graduate school. These guys were my lifeline during a stretch of my life when I was very uncertain about myself professionally and socially. Having been largely unsuccessful in the dating world, these gay men became like surrogate boyfriends. They provided all of the social benefits of a relationship without any of the physical intimacy. With only a couple of exceptions, that was all I ever wanted from these guys.
We were a tight group, although there were several incidents of drama and tension, including of the sexual variety. (It was 12 gay guys, for pity's sake.) I never knew a closer group of friends, and likely never will again. For many of us coming out is like going through our teenage years all over again. We may be physically older and through with the more embarrassing aspects of pubesence, but we nonetheless have to deal with all the emotional baggage of asserting our own individuality and figuring out the often perilously thin line between platonic attachment and romantic longings.
Eventually the group split up. Petty jealousies, sexual betrayals and rumor mongering set the wheels in motion, but ultimately our careers got in the way. Many of us were students and anticipated moving on to actual employment once our degrees were finished. Others knew that Nashville was only a temporary destination as their occupations required them to relocate or take new jobs in different cities. I was among the last to leave, and I'm glad I stayed around as the most significant relationship of my adult life occurred in the last two years I lived in Nashville, once most of my friends had left the city to start new lives. Eventually a job took me away as well, and here I sit, waiting in the aiport of the city that was home for so long for a flight to the city that I call home now.
Last night was a stark reminder of the message from Robert Frost's poem "Nothing gold can stay." As much as I loved all these guys, I really only see the ones in Philly and New York, and another who now lives in Milwaukee. And there's a reason for this. Joyous times in life are precious and fleeting, and this is what makes them special. It's nice to think that we'll always stay friends with everyone we've ever been friends with, but that's the exception rather than the rule. As I get older losing friends seems less like a tragedy and more like the normal way of things. I have more friends to make in life, and some people whom I currently know and feel close to will fade from my life like the passing of a season. And that's okay.
The friend from the West Coast who threw the birthday party for himself last night admonished us to stay in touch. I hope we will, but I'm not counting on it. Sometimes you just know when it's over. And as I sit in the airport terminal, watching for the plane that will take me back to Chicago, I really feel only one thing.
I feel like it's over.
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The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
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 by and by:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—
I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference.
* * *
Why does one road have a “better claim” than the other when it is “just as fair” as the other? Robert says he chose it “because it was grassy and wanted wear” and then contradicts himself by saying both roads are worn “really about the same” and “equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.”
What is it “that has made all the difference”?
Robert is what has made all the difference. He wants to see difference in sameness and sees it. He sees what he needs to see: a road “less travelled.” He needs to distinguish himself from the majority—the ordinary—who take the road most travelled. He is motivated by inferiority to convert his commonality into the superiority of poet/genius.
Robert composed his poem to illustrate his free will yet his choices—the two roads—are equal (indistinguishable) so that choosing one over the other is equivalent to flipping a coin: a decision made from an external, random event, not free will.
We are most free when motiveless: free of necessity; when our choices are equal and can be made randomly. Yet we can only demonstrate free will—choose one thing instead of another—if there is a difference to which we ascribe significance.
Robert believes he is demonstrating free will by seeing a difference between two equal roads and choosing between them.
Suppose when Robert came to the roads he thought: “One road is ‘just as fair’ as the other and both are worn ‘really about the same’ and ‘equally lay in leaves no step has trodden black.’ How do I choose between them? I can flip a coin but then I would be forfeiting my decision-making—free will—to the outcome of an external, random event. I do not want to do this since there is no dignity acting from a decision I did not make. I will therefore create a difference where there is none and act from this difference.”
This is not what Robert consciously thought but what he actually did: he converted a necessity to make a random/unmotivated choice between two equals into a necessity to choose between them based on a self-created difference. But by so doing he demonstrated he was not free since his choice was necessitated by this imaginary (but real to him) difference.
For Robert to be truly free to “choose” between two equals (an impossibility since there is nothing distinguishing them and therefore nothing to choose from) he would need to do something equivalent to flipping a coin. But if he did this he would be acting from an external necessity and not from his free will: his own choosing. He could argue he is choosing between the head and the tail of the coin, but these are equal choices since he cannot predict the outcome of flipping the coin, which if he could would make a significant difference and be the basis for him to make a choice between them.
Ask yourself: Can I internally randomize my choices so I will not be acting from the necessity of a motive? If you answer yes, you will then have to explain the process whereby you can make a randomized—motiveless—choice. A machine can do this but you are not a machine.
Man is condemned to be free. — Jean-Paul Sartre
Man is condemned to exist in the realm of necessity.
Freedom is necessity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
*
Greg: Robert Frost tells us three times the two roads are the same. It is not the road that makes the difference; it is the traveler. A Friend of Robert Frost
Friend: What is it about Robert that makes him different from the ordinary person who does not see a difference in two roads that “are the same”?
How can one road have a “better claim” than the other when they “are the same”?
What is the objective or subjective basis upon which Robert chose one road and not the other? Greg
Greg: Are these homework questions? Each reader must answer them for himself. A Friend of Robert Frost
Friend: I asked for bread and you gave me stones. Greg
*
Greg: Robert Frost said the two roads had been worn “about the same.” “About the same” means “approximately the same.” So there is a difference between the two roads and it is from this difference he chose one and not the other. Frank
Frank: Suppose you make a new acquaintance, John, who tells you he has identical twin sisters, Janet and Janice. You know identical twins often look different from diet, health and physical activity. You ask John: “Do your sisters look alike?” He says: “They look about the same. Janet has a barely perceptible scar above her left eye, which she got when she fell off her bicycle when she was 6 years old and which can be seen only when close-up to her. Other than this difference they look alike.” A couple of days later you meet John’s twin sisters and before he can introduce them to you, you say to Janet: “Hello, Janet” and to Janice: “Hello, Janice.” They both ask you how you knew their names and could distinguish between them. You say: “John told me your names a couple of days ago and said Janet was the one with a barely perceptible scar above her left eye.”
Robert Frost said the two roads had been worn “about the same” but does not say what, if anything, distinguishes one road from the other, as John distinguished Janet from Janice from the scar above her left eye and which differentiated her from her sister.
Of course the two roads are “about the same” since no two roads in a yellow wood are unqualifiedly the same. What makes them equal for Robert is his ignorance of their terminuses. For him to say one road is “less travelled” and therefore different from the other is an inference for which he does not provide any substantiation. Greg
Greg: Robert Frost was a poet, not an analytical thinker. Frank
Frank: This is true. Greg
*
Greg: You wrote:
“Robert converted a necessity to make a random/unmotivated choice between two equals into a necessity to choose between them based on a self-created difference.”
What is this all about? Jim
Jim: We act from necessity although we are not usually aware of this. To choose one thing and not another is to do so from a perceived preferential difference which becomes the necessity/motive to choose it.
Suppose when Robert Frost comes to the two roads there is a man with a gun who orders him to take the road to his left. He does and thereby acts from the necessity to preserve his life: he is externally motivated to do so by the threat the man poses to his life, which he prefers to avoid endangering by arguing with him.
Now suppose when Robert comes to the two roads there is a sign identifying the destination of each: Whitehall to the left and Blackburn to the right. He is going to Whitehall to marry his fiancée. He “chooses” the road on his left because this is the one he needs to take to get to where he wants (needs) to go. His “choice” is necessitated by his motive/need and he is not free to take the road to Blackburn unless he undergoes a change of his motive/need.
Suppose when Robert comes to the two roads he thinks: “I fear I will be making a terrible mistake marrying my fiancée.” He cannot dissuade himself from this thought so he “chooses” to take the road to Blackburn. By so doing he acts from the necessity/motive of his fear which has replaced the necessity/motive to marry his fiancée.
Everything we do has a motive: a necessity.
To be free is to act from our own necessities.
Some motives—such as fear—are powerful: we cannot say no to them. Some motives—such as superficial preferences—are weak: we can say no to them. Everyone has an autonomous self since everyone, when not externally compelled or constrained, acts from their own necessities/motives.
In the preceding scenario, Robert comes to the two roads and thinks: “I fear I will be making a terrible mistake marrying my fiancée.” His fear prevents him from doing what he otherwise would do. He is exercising his autonomous self by taking the road to Blackburn instead of Whitehall because he is acting from an internal necessity/motive, but he is not free because his fear is preventing from doing what he otherwise would do. He has a divided self.
For the good I will to do, I do not do.
But the bad I will not to do, I do.
— St. Paul
People who are self-divided lack self-knowledge. Greg
Greg: Why did Robert create a difference between the two equal roads? Jim
Jim: He believes his ego-consciousness is his motivator and decision-maker. He created a difference between the two roads where there was none as a consequence of this mistaken notion; and it is mistaken because much of what we do is nonconsciously motivated. An example of this is Robert’s poem, The Road Not Taken. He did not explicate it because he was unaware of the meaning of what he was unconsciously communicating. This is characteristic of the dream-state where the dreamer/poet is only aware of the manifest (explicit) content and not the latent (implicit) content of his mental production.
When Robert was a child he was taught he was responsible for his behavior: blameworthy/punishable when he makes a bad/wrong decision; consequently, after such a decision he thinks: “I could have and therefore should have decided differently”; although in reality if he had known at the time what he only subsequently learned from his decision, he would have decided differently. In other words, he retrospectively attributes to himself an ability and knowledge he did not have; and he does this to make himself blameworthy/punishable for his bad/wrong decision; and he does this from having received a defective moral education as a child. Greg
Greg: Then the self-created difference is a rationalization for choosing one indistinguishable road from the other? Jim
Jim: Yes. Robert needs to see a difference where there is none to justify his blameworthiness/ punishability if he later concludes he decided badly/wrongly. Greg
Greg: Or to praise/reward himself for having decided rightly/correctly. Jim
Jim: Right, correct. Greg
Greg: Why was Robert’s moral education defective? Jim
Jim: He was taught that he is blameworthy/punishable when his behavior results in bad/wrong consequences, although he was either ignorant of these at the time or his emotional state was such that he could not have chosen—was not free to choose—otherwise.
Fundamental to our idea of moral responsibility is free will: that when we knowingly do wrong we could have chosen to not do it, which makes us blameworthy and deserving of punishment. What is not considered are the necessities, often unconscious, motivating us to act wrongly: immorally or illegally.
The question is: Are we blameworthy and deserving of punishment if we were ignorant of the consequences of our behavior or if our emotional state at the time was such that we could not have chosen—were not free to choose—otherwise? If we are, then criminal justice is the socialization of revenge and eternal damnation is its theological justification. Greg
Greg: You wrote:
“Some motives—such as fear—are powerful: we cannot say no to them.”
I went skydiving once although I was terrified of jumping out of the airplane. I said no to my fear. Jim
Greg: You overcame your fear of death to prove you were stronger than your fear. Your motivational state underwent a change from the incapacity of fear to an assertion of autonomy of will. Who were you trying to impress? A girlfriend? Greg
Greg: My paratrooper brother. Jim
Jim: Sufficiency of motivation will accomplish the apparently impossible. Greg
*
Greg: You missed the essential point of the poem. Not all roads lead to the same destination. The destination of the road Robert Frost took was different from the destination of the road he did not take. He is lamenting—“with a sigh”—not knowing what was at the end of this road. He is saying: “To choose one thing and not the other is to choose against the other: the knowledge of it.” Jake
Jake: Someone lamenting a choice not made is regretting a choice made. This is why Robert titled his poem The Road Not Taken.
Robert believes he is responsible for the consequences of his decisions. This is appropriate since taking ownership of them is what it means to be a responsible person. But as a child he was also taught that when a person makes a bad/wrong decision he deserves to be punished. Regret is self- punishment. It is the emotional whipping we give ourselves for having made a bad/wrong decision: something, which, if at the time we had known the consequences or had been in a different emotional state, we would not have done. A better title for Robert’s poem would therefore be Regrets for Roads Taken.
You wrote:
“To choose one thing and not the other is to choose against the other: the knowledge of it.”
You cannot choose against something unless you have knowledge of what you are choosing against. For you to regret not having chosen it is to imagine/think/believe—without any basis of fact—that the consequences of having done so would have been better than the consequences of what you did choose. For all you know it might have been equal or worse.
Suppose you are marriageable and Jill and Jean both want to marry you. You like them both equally and cannot imagine any significant disadvantages to living with either. You flip a coin: heads for Jill and tails for Jean. The coin determines your “choice” as Jill. On your wedding night you discover Jill is really a he/she: a transgender. You had assumed Jill was a biological woman with whom you would someday have your own children and now you are understandably disappointed for having married him/her. But you cannot therefore rationally imagine/think/believe: “I should have married Jean” because she too could be a he/she.
You wrote:
“Not all roads lead to the same destination.”
The road all human beings are travelling leads to the same destination: death. This is our commonality and common regret. Greg
Greg: If regret is self-punishment then how can death be our common regret? Jake
Jake: Punishment makes us feel bad. We punish ourselves by not accepting the inevitability and finality of our death:
Do not go gentle into the good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas
Dylan’s life and death were not peaceful. He lived and died a drunk. Greg
*
Greg: You wrote:
“Ask yourself: Can I internally randomize my choices so I will not be acting from the necessity of a motive? If you answer yes, you will then have to explain the process whereby you can make a randomized—motiveless—choice. A machine can do this but you are not a machine.”
Suppose at the end of the road I am travelling I come to two roads going in opposite directions. I need to choose between them but have no basis—no knowledge—upon which to make a distinction between them that would make a difference in which road I took. I need to do something equivalent to flipping a coin but do not have one. I have a pencil and paper. I intend to multiply twenty four-digit numbers but before I do, I tell myself: “If the sum is an even number, I will take the road on my left and if odd, I will take the road on my right.” I then multiply the twenty four-digit numbers which results in an odd number sum. I take the road on my right. I have made a randomized—motiveless—choice in the manner of a machine. Rita
Rita: There are some people, who, without using a pencil and paper, can multiply twenty four-digit numbers and give you an accurate even or odd sum. (Some people can glance at a page in a telephone directory they have never seen before and then recite the names from memory in the order in which they appear on the page.) You specified the requirement—before multiplying the numbers—to go left or right based on the even or odd number of their sum. But how do you know the sum you computed was not unconsciously motivated/determined to be odd from your predilection to go right in a symmetrical situation from being right-handed? In other words, how do you know you did not unconsciously select the final four-digits to result in an odd sum? Greg
Greg: That is improbable. Rita
Rita: Yes, but not impossible and therefore it cannot be ruled out. You (your brain) might have this ability of computation and reasoning and you (your ego-consciousness) do not know it.
There are more things in heaven and earth
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
— William Shakespeare
Greg
Greg:
Sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
— Lewis (Queen) Carroll
Rita
Rita: Touché. Greg
*
Greg: You wrote:
“Robert Frost is motivated by inferiority to convert his commonality into the superiority of poet/genius.”
What inferiority? Shelley
Shelley: Death.
Socrates was a man.
All men die: cease to exist.
Socrates is dead: no longer exists.
The knowledge of death makes human beings inferior to the immortality they imagine/wish possessing. Greg
Greg: What superiority? Shelley
Shelley: Immortality. Robert Frost—unlike ordinary dead human beings—still exists. His poetry is his personal perpetuity. Greg
Greg: In actuality he is dead: no longer exists. Shelley
Shelley: Try telling that to the Friends of Robert Frost. Greg
*
Greg: You wrote:
“We are most free when our choices are equal and can be made randomly.”
This is how we imagine heaven will be—low-hanging fruit, wormless, perfect and always equally ripe and accessible—and this is what Robert Frost was confronted with when he came to the two roads: one “just as fair” as the other and both worn “really about the same” and both “equally lay in leaves no step has trodden black.”
Robert converted the random-decision situation of heaven into the motivational-decision situation of earth by seeing a difference between the two roads where there was none. In other words, he is proclaiming his humanity/fallibility/gullibility by creating a nonexisting difference between the two equal roads. In other words, he is saying: “Give me imperfect earth to perfect heaven anytime.” Sharon
Sharon: I need to ruminate on that for a while. Greg
*
Greg: Suppose I am married to a man who regularly beats me and does so in such a way there are no bruises and therefore no evidence of this. He told me if I ever leave him, he would kill my mother and father. I am at my breaking point. I have thought about killing myself but do not want to leave my two young children motherless, which they would be if I killed their father and were sent to prison. My parents are too old to care for them and I have no relatives to whom I can entrust them. What should I do? Sue
Sue: Kill the son-of-a-bitch and plead insanity. Greg
Greg: But I am not insane! Sue
Sue: You are if your situation is. Greg
Greg: What would be a rational justification for killing him? Sue
Sue: You said you are at your “breaking point”, which means you will either kill yourself or kill your husband. Your self-preservation takes precedence over the life of a sadistic, homicidal spouse.
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