Leave the road, take the trails – Pythagoras
Roads are for the ones who love order, similarity, immobility and impeccability. Roads are for the bystanders, monetisers, consumers and the ones who are on a quest. Roads help you reach your desired places faster, worry-free and focused. Roads are for the ones who love systems, institutions, convention and alleviation.
Trails are for the ones who prefer chaos, perils, adventure and fleck-less. Trails are for seekers, hippies, wanderers and creators who see life as one HUGE experiment. Trails are for the ones who are anarchists, institution-less, self-learners and the ones who loves exacerbation. Trails make you alert and attentive all the time, because of the nature of it’s lostfulness. Trails make you go through life, death and everything in between.
When choosing one path over another, do you ever regret your choice? We often wonder about the choices we didn’t make, the chances we didn’t take. We regret not doing things all the time. But many decisions only allow us an either/or option. They are binary. Should I marry this person or not marry them? Those are, baldly speaking, the only two choices, even if not marrying X leads to our marrying Y. Should I take this job or not take this job? See, they are binary. Like Prince Hamlet said – To be or not to be.
Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken comes to my mind while writing, reminding me that people regret the choices they make but are unfortunate that they cannot ever replay it.
“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.”
The ones on road, oftentimes, wish to be on trails – for the ones on road know they are on built-up path, for the ones on road know that they live on materials. But, the ones on trails, very rarely, wish to be on the road – for the ones on trail are on the path of the ultimate where the path itself is the ultimate.
Always Remember, the path is the destination and the destination is hidden in the path.
Early morning is the best time to read this To start the day with full of refreshments. I can feel the words.