The road less travelled

[BRIDE]

What is the philosophical meaning of ‘the road less traveled’?

 

[GEddie]

What is the philosophical meaning of ‘the road less traveled’?

Are you sure there is one? It’s just the title of a poem, to me.

Sometimes a poem is just a poem.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost, 1916

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.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

What is the philosophical meaning of ‘the road less traveled’?

Usually about American Exceptionalism although only someone who never read/understood the poem would think that.

 

[animalis]

S. Bonaventure said, “Philosophical knowledge is nothing other than the certain knowledge of truth in as far as it can be investigated. Theological knowledge is the pious knowledge of truth as believable.” (Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, 4, 5) Knowledge directs the intellect to the grasping of insight, or in other words, understanding. This direction is by enlightening the meaning of the intellectual substance. Infused light of faith upon the innate light of reason distingishes the reason to advance to the term. The intellectual substance is found to agree with the extrinsic, that be, the being and the forms, by the infused light upon the innate light.

Philosophical knowledge can be described in three ways, “in terms of a triple order as natural, as rational, and as moral, namely, in as far as it is concerned with 'the cause of being, the principle of understanding, and the order of living.” (ibid.; 4, 6)

It seems to me that the poem concerns the inquirendo of moral science, the last sciences of the triplet of sciences of the triple order.

Moral science, concerns virtue, which by its presentment in the Nicomedian Ethics by Aristotle, concerns the mean between the excess and defect of the virtue. I would say to develop a road less traveled requisitely develops by theological knowledge, the *pious *knowledge of truth. For Augustine said, “For nothing save *piety *and purity can lead the mind to greater things.” (On the Morals of the Manichaeans, 7)

 

[retire_early]

He took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. He took the route that most people did not. He didn’t go with the flow. He found it satisfying to not be one of the crowd. Sounds like he found enjoyment in life.

I never studied this poem, read critique of it or even discussed it with others, but always liked it and thought it meant that the more challenging, less “safe” route in life might bring more satisfaction in the end.

I’m so old, I’ve forgotten what philosophy means.

 

[GEddie]

He took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. He took the route that most people did not. He didn’t go with the flow. He found it satisfying to not be one of the crowd. Sounds like he found enjoyment in life.

I never studied this poem, read critique of it or even discussed it with others, but always liked it and thought it meant that the more challenging, less “safe” route in life might bring more satisfaction in the end.

I’m so old, I’ve forgotten what philosophy means.

I think one needs to be old to philosophize properly

ICXC NIKA

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

He took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. He took the route that most people did not. He didn’t go with the flow. He found it satisfying to not be one of the crowd. Sounds like he found enjoyment in life.

I never studied this poem, read critique of it or even discussed it with others, but always liked it and thought it meant that the more challenging, less “safe” route in life might bring more satisfaction in the end.

I’m so old, I’ve forgotten what philosophy means.

That’s the common view held by those who haven’t studied it

 

[retire_early]

OK the high and mighty can just call me the common man! :tiphat: Ha-ha-ha-ha!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The psychologist Scott Peck wrote a book a few years ago titled The Road Less Traveled.

In it he emphasized that most people take the easiest road to travel, a road they often learn to recognize is not so easy as they had imagined. Peck emphasizes that the road less often traveled is the road that is difficult (which is why people less often chooses to travel it) but has great rewards to be found at the end. He felt that in dealing with his patients this was a problem most of them had to overcome with his help, and he found it a frustrating experience that the patients he was trying to help more often than not would quit therapy because they found the quest of self discovery too difficult and painful.

Easier to get back to the t.v., beer, and chips.

 

[empther]

Henry David Thoreau may not have used the phrase “road less traveled”,
but his whole book Walden Pond is about living differently from most people.

On earning a living: “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.”

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.

 

[GEddie]

That’s the common view held by those who haven’t studied it

Well, JdV, what is your correct answer, then ?

I for one do NOT do poetry. But apart from the Frost poem, has anybody considered that the idea of a “less travelled road” might not derive from an 1800s poem at all, but from Matthew 7:13 -14?

ICXC NIKA

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The psychologist Scott Peck wrote a book a few years ago titled The Road Less Traveled.

In it he emphasized that most people take the easiest road to travel, a road they often learn to recognize is not so easy as they had imagined. Peck emphasizes that the road less often traveled is the road that is difficult (which is why people less often chooses to travel it) but has great rewards to be found at the end. He felt that in dealing with his patients this was a problem most of them had to overcome with his help, and he found it a frustrating experience that the patients he was trying to help more often than not would quit therapy because they found the quest of self discovery too difficult and painful.

Easier to get back to the t.v., beer, and chips.

It was in fact a best seller and first published in 1978.
This is indeed what most people associate with the phrase “The Road less Travelled.”

To your excellent summary above i would only add one thing…

His basic premise was “Life involves suffering” but so often we screw up our own lives because few of us want to accept this truth.
In doing so we so screw ourselves up that we end up experiencing far more suffering than God wanted us to face in the first place.

So what is the “Road Less Travelled.” It is a way through life that lovingly embraces all the suffering providence has planned for us whether we be good or evil. Because most people do not accept this truth…it is a road travelled by few.

It is in fact the easiest road through life, strange how few people take it just as Jesus (“my yoke is easy”) and Buddha (“Life involves suffering”) taught.

 

[lazuli]

Seems to me the poem is more of a melancholy examination of the narratives we spin for ourselves in order to justify our choices than it is some romantic assertion of individualism or hard work as it is normally interpreted. I think Frost is deceptively nuanced.

 

[Counterpoint]

What is the philosophical meaning of ‘the road less traveled’?

I haven’t read “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck. But based on the some of the reviews on Amazon.com, it would appear that the message is that life’s struggles present us with opportunities to grow, both emotionally and spiritually.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Well, JdV, what is your correct answer, then ?

I for one do NOT do poetry. But apart from the Frost poem, has anybody considered that the idea of a “less travelled road” might not derive from an 1800s poem at all, but from Matthew 7:13 -14?

ICXC NIKA

It’s poetry, most of the time there isn’t a definitive correct answer however believe it or not Wikipedia appears to have a reasonable analysis.

“The Road Not Taken” was published in 1916 by a man named Robert Frost who is definitely one of the greatest American poets to have ever lived.

 

[retire_early]

I just re-read the poem by Robert Frost, again, and was struck by some of the words:

“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.”

Could be that he was sighing because he was sad or regretful. Meaning that the difference made turned out to be to his detriment. Bummer!

I hope I never remember that I thought this.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I just re-read the poem by Robert Frost, again, and was struck by some of the words:

“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.”

Could be that he was sighing because he was sad or regretful. Meaning that the difference made turned out to be to his detriment. Bummer!

I hope I never remember that I thought this.

That’s actually referring to the narrator saying it future

 

[retire_early]

That’s actually referring to the narrator saying it future

Dear Joie, yes, I know that. My point is a suppositional future, wherein the road taker expresses regret as indicated by sighing. I always thought the spunk shown by taking the road less traveled automatically resulted in obtaining something that fewer people receive and was, somehow, better. But the sigh…that sounds regretful.