“There are two paths of which one may choose in the walk of life; one we are born with, and the one we consciously blaze. One is naturally true, while the other is a perceptive illusion. Choose wisely at each fork in the road.”
Which is which?
Shall the circumstances of my birth become the path I walk? Is that the true and natural one, or is that nothing more than a “perceptive illusion”?
Is the path that I “consciously blaze” the true and natural one that I should walk? Or is that nothing more than a mere “perceptive illusion”?
Are we trapped into being and becoming through the accident of birth or can we choose?
Is it not disingenuous to advise us to take care in making our choices if we may, in fact, not have a choice?
Does my heritage define my future?
I suppose it is back to the old Plato/Aristotle issue of whether the slate is clean at birth or not!
Still, there is that irritating need to define things.
What exactly is “perceptive illusion”?
It is an untruth, a paradox!
It is an optical illusion, a mathematical system for creating space and distance, depth of field, but it is represents something that is not, and has never been there.
So what is Hodge really saying?
So intent on giving us good advice (and we all know how we love unsolicited advice!), by saying we should choose wisely, yet in the same breath he is telling us that we, in fact don’t have and never had, a choice.
If the second road, the one we consciously blaze, is a perceptive illusion, then there is no choice and we are what we are until we are no longer.
That thought just depresses me! I much prefer Robert Frost’s words from the poem, The Road not Taken:
“….Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
It gives us hope and allows us to dream, to better ourselves and reach further because as Henry Ford said, “if we think we can or we think we can’t, we are right”.