The other road

I recently read an article by David Orr discussing Robert Frost’s much-loved poem The Road Not Taken. Orr’s piece made me realize that I—like most readers—have been misinterpreting the poem for years. We tend to read Frost’s opus as a celebration of taking the road less traveled, and the understanding, later in our lives, that such a choice “has made all the difference.” But Orr questions this standard interpretation, recognizing the poem as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and instead asserting that “[t]he poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.”

Indeed, a closer reading of the poem reveals that the road the poet chooses—“because it was grassy and wanted wear”—is really not that different from the other road; in fact, the poet admits that both roads “equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.” But despite his desire to travel both paths, the poet must choose one, and in doing so foreclose the opportunity of taking the other. He will never know what he might have seen or experienced that day had he chosen differently. And so his upbeat conclusion that the road he chose “has made all the difference” is pure rationalization. Indeed, we can never truly know if any choice we made was for the best, because in choosing one option we consign all others to oblivion. Perhaps the road we didn’t take would have proven pleasanter or more enriching. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell.

I think about this any time people speak speculatively about important moments in their lives. We so often talk about some episode in our past—be it the loss of a loved one, or a bout with illness or depression, or a major career decision—and although we acknowledge its difficulty and the challenges it posed, we almost invariably claim that it was “for the best,” sometimes even asserting that we wouldn’t trade the experience if we could, because it has made us who we are today. But how can we know that it was for the best? How can we assert that the person we are today is the best possible version of ourselves? We like to claim that the road we took—the one less traveled and sometimes downright perilous—was the better option in the long term, but isn’t this just a kind of post-hoc justification? Aren’t we just crafting a story about our lives that frames our experiences in the most positive light, because we lack the knowledge and ability to fully imagine an alternate reality?

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It seems to me that the only way we could ever truly decide which of our choices or experiences was better or worse would be to actually live out each option. Of course, this is impossible in our physical world, but what if it could be done neurologically? There’s an episode of Rick and Morty that features a video game called Roy: A Life Well Lived. In this game, you wear a helmet that integrates with your brain and allows you to live the life of a man named Roy, making decisions as to what he does and who he becomes. While mere minutes pass in the outside world, within the game you are able to live an entire lifetime as this fictional character. And interestingly, the game scores certain choices higher than others, as evidenced by Rick’s cocky taunt that he is about to thrash Morty’s score; the implication is that some lives are indeed more “well lived” than others.

This leads me to a fascinating thought experiment. What if we could someday invent a device—using AI, algorithms, virtual reality, etc.—that would allow us to mentally experience alternative choices? Would this disrupt how we construct the narratives of our lives? For instance, I grew up (mostly*) as an only child, and when people ask me whether I liked being an only child, I typically say yes. But am I saying yes because life as an only child was genuinely better and happier for me, or because I simply have no real way of imagining the alternative? Having not grown up with siblings, I have none of the vivid memories and powerful emotions associated with such a life. It is utterly beyond my capacity to fully realize what a childhood with siblings would have been like. It’s the equivalent of comparing a delicious, fresh-cooked meal right in front of me to a black-and-white picture of a meal in a book; the latter option cannot begin to compete with the former.

But what if 40-year-old me could step into a Roy-like machine that would tap into my brain to recreate the personality and memories of 6-year-old me, but then introduce a younger sibling into my life? I would then live out (in my head) the next 34 years truly knowing what it was like to grow up with a brother or sister. How would that change me? Would I spend more time playing with my sibling, becoming more sociable and learning how to share? Of course, that would mean less time alone with my books and my thoughts, resulting in a less introspective and intellectual Jonathan. Which “me” would be more rewarding in the long term? Could I truly compare them, which experience would I prefer: only-child Jonathan or sibling-having Jonathan? Currently, I can only answer that question in one way, because only one option has any emotional resonance and visceral reality to it. But if I could hold both lifetimes in my head at once, feeling one as strongly as the other? Would I still be as sure to choose my current life?

Here’s another example. I often speak of the period in my life (around age 30) when I endured a serious and crippling bout of depression. That experience radically changed me, reorienting my life’s priorities and teaching me real humility; indeed, the direction of my life has been quite different since that period. But while the experience itself was truly terrible, whenever I am asked if, given the choice, I would somehow cut it out of my life or prevent it from ever happening, I can’t help but say no. “It’s made me a stronger and better person,” I say. And perhaps it has. But if I really stop and think about it, how can I possibly know if the post-depression version of me is stronger or better or happier than a Jonathan who never endured that nightmare. In an alternate universe, perhaps there is a me that avoided that depressive episode—and perhaps that Jonathan, with his greater positivity and his unshaken confidence, is now happily married with kids, and is an active leader in his community. So while the Jonathan of this world is perhaps more wise, the Jonathan in the alternate universe could be far happier. Given the choice, which version should I prefer? I’m biased, of course, towards choosing the current “wise” me, but that could simply be because I can’t fully imagine the joyfulness of that other life. And what’s so great about wisdom, anyway? As Ecclesiastes warns, “[W]ith much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.”

Which leads me to one final point. Perhaps it is better that we not know where our alternative roads would have led us. If we could use our theoretical Roy-like machines to mentally take those untrodden paths, perhaps we would find them darker or at least less satisfactory, and be glad of the lives we now live. But what if those other roads led us to happier futures with greater fulfillment? How could we then live our current lives with anything other than regret? We would drive ourselves crazy thinking of what could have been. If the machine were to show me that the sibling-having Jonathan, or the non-depressive Jonathan, ended up with a life both materially and emotionally richer than the one I have now, would I not be wracked with remorse over those “roads not taken?” Come to think of it, we’d probably need another machine (in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) that could subsequently erase those different paths from our memories should knowledge of them prove too burdensome. If that’s the case, maybe we are indeed better off living in ignorance of alternate outcomes, naively assuring ourselves that whatever road we chose “has made all the difference.”

*I say I was “mostly” an only child because while I do have a half-brother, he is almost nine years older than me, and moved to Texas to live with his dad when I was about age six. So our large age difference during those first few years, followed by his lengthy absence from our household, resulted in my effectively growing up as an only child.