There are so many decisions to make. Every day it seems I am confronted with not the false binary choice of Frost's two paths diverging but rather a multifarious and intimidating array of options. Even the debate over free will is almost always posed as all-or-nothing dichotomy, rather than the complex that it is. As Americans we often have more choices than some people, or less. As a strong-willed individual, one has more options than another. No doubt much of our life is determined by simply the way we've been laid on the tracks, however it is our choice whether to follow our instincts or swallow them.


Corporate 'merikuh has begun to wrap me in its leathern tentacles. The lure of ever-increasing wages intended to pay for a lifestyle I am not interested in. The promise of a life of intellectual and physical slack while "things" (cars, homes, wives, children, plasma TVs) pile up around me. The spectre of comfort in a world that starves or flays its children many miles from here. All under the arrogant assumption that this evanescent condition is fixed; that the earth will not swallow us at its whim.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, my passions are irrelevant. I'm willing to accept that. But that suggests that everything is irrelevant to the larger system, and that the only important metric of this epic life (and maybe that's the point, to make our life an epic, no matter the specifics) is what I think of it. When the time comes, I know I will be ready to choose freedom and difficulty over subservience and ease. Or at least I hope that I will.