It may be America’s favorite poem, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” about a wanderer confronted by a decision when “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” It’s a tricky poem, maybe a tribute to American individualism on that road “less traveled,” or perhaps a nod to roads unknown.
It hasn’t escaped my notice you can get rich writing about “finding meaning.” Hah. Viktor E. Frankl, noted psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, made it big with his 1946 best-seller, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” With millions of copies sold in dozens of languages, it’s still in print. Though initially derided by his peers, Frankl argued that meaning had spiritual roots and millions of readers wanted to know more.
The family’s getting together for Thanksgiving dinner, a tradition with menu and recipes etched in stone. Two guests want to bring something, but what if their candied sweet potato recipe differs from ours? This left me pondering the first Thanksgiving dinner of the Pilgrims, grateful for a harvest to last the coming winter, and the Wampanoag Tribe, who taught them how to plant. You may have had an ancestor there. About one-fourth of Indy readers do.