I can't help but continue to remember Robert Frost's poems, "The Road Not Taken" and Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred", as I grow older. I've lived in several states, worked various different jobs, produced and played music, acted, directed, wrote plays...well all the other stuff, and I still think when should I stop and be satisfied with what I have and who I am? Well, I could stop, but what would that do? First I think it's important to remember that idea of balance again. Balance the enthusiasm and drive with the joy and happiness of what you have. How difficult it is to remember this basic idea. In my creativity class I discussed the idea of Truth and the desire to know what Truth is. Well, each person has his or her own views of what is Truth, so how can it be defined. Fact can be defined, but Truth, well that's a different story. So, we continuously create our Truth. Let's go back to the balance and the Frost and Hughes poems. We need to have the courage and ambition to do what we believe and what is important to us to pursue in the future, but we can never forget the importance of what we have and who we're with. I've learned much from my conversations with my new friend, Craig Padilla, but if I didn't take the risk and contact him, I would never have gained the positive discussions I've had with him. We can learn many things from the moment. The moment is what makes us who we are in the future, what we have become from the past and once that moment is gone, as it can be at any time, then we need to believe that we made the most out of the moment and can take that forward with our ambition. I've included the poems below.
"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 marked 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.
"A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes