Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)

Hmm, I remember writing a blog posting referencing this poem by Frost back in day when I had an 'online journal' and not a blog. Let's see if I can find it:

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Summer passes on in lazy slow circles.

I was watching my first Oprah show the other day. She had a series of guests who had achieved incredible success from dire circumstances. Parents died, homeless, night classes, on to Harvard, and writing a best selling book on the subject kind of life stories. She had each guest tell about their struggle. She then showered them with praise and gave them a plaque.

The common thread through all of the stories was that they had no immediate family to depend on. They cited this as a source of pride--"And I had to do it alone. . ." But I think that their lack of family made it possible for them to achieve more than they could have if they had had a family.

I'm sure everyone has seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life. In the movie the main character continually gives up his aspirations to support his family at home. By giving up his dreams he is able to assure the dreams of his brother, father, and children.

Like in Frost's poem Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening I think the major issue is the conflict between serving others or serving yourself.

While not discounting the terrific struggles the women on Oprah's show went through to achieve what they did, I do think that their struggle was made easier because they only had to worry about themselves. They could spend all day studying because they didn't have a baby at home or a sick parent to take care of. Their energies could be intensely directed at their one goal. It wasn't split among a variety of causes or responsibilities. Their cause and responsibility were united.

The main character in It's a Wonderful Life (and let's just call him Jim because I've forgotten what he is called) sacrificed his wants for others. Is he nobler? At the end, we are to think that he is because he has friends and family and a wonderful life. But since it was not the life he had imagined for himself who is to say how things might have turned out if he had managed to pursue his own goals that he had at the start of the picture.

Is it better to chase down your own goals or to let them lie dormant if it means that others will be able to achieve theirs'?

Frost seemed to think so. The woods are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep.

The speaker in Frost's poem gives up his own desire to stay in the wood and watch the snow in order to fulfill his obligations, his promises to others.

I don't know which is the better path to take. But it seems to me that this issue is at the heart of so many unresolved issues today. The individual or the community? It's visible in homeland security. Personal freedoms or omnipresent surveillance? Medicine: Assisted suicides or no? It's at the bottom of soleada42's argument against the subservient position a woman is supposed to have in some wedding vows. It is the conflict between our valedictorian and salutatorian’s speeches
It is a matter of who deserves the priority: the individual or the community.

And right now at least, I think that this is the unresolvable issue. I don't see a way to compromise between the two.

Et tu?


Favorite line: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/ And miles to go before I sleep"