Samuel Wan : News, Information and Resources

My father, who passed away several years ago, had that poem frame above his desk in his office.

Steve, thanks for posting. If you don't mind my asking, how did your father interpret "The Road Not Taken?"

Many days and weeks have passed where I've wondered about the poem; whether Frost is referring to the difficulty of making decisions, the rewards of taking risks, or knowing how long you should wait before making a decision. But then I wonder if Frost was addressing entirely different questions. Anyways, sometimes it's difficult to just distinguish between roads.

If you were looking for a specific kind of road to explore but that particular fork wouldn't appear even after many miles, how long should you wait before choosing one of the other paths passing by? Well, with all these questions, there is one thing I've discovered: When faced with a choice, you have the opportunity to learn something about yourself.

Here's an interesting overview of different interpretations: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~yoneamuk/AnalysisOfThedifferentInterpretationsOf.html

Ok, so I've diverged a bit from UI design and Actionscript :) No worries, I've got a bunch of interesting stuff waiting for final polish and documentation before public release.

Sam, “The Road Not Taken” was my dad’s second favorite poem. “Spell of the Yukon” was by far the one that he really found his inspiration. Both however, were framed in his office.

I feel that my Dad believed the “Spell of the Yukon” is the realization that love comes from the journeys we take and not reaching the final destinations.

“The Road Not Taken” may be the belief in the knowledge we accumulate from those journeys and the guidance it gives us with tough decisions.

If I could ask him what these poems mean he’d ask me what do they mean to me, that’s their true meaning.

Until now I never really drew the comparisons between those two poems.

How long do we travel the roads we choose? I have no answer.

I’m currently faced with a road with many forks. AS, Java or do I focus on ASP, JSP and SQL? I wonder what the environment was like in the early days of Java. Can Flash be a solid app development tool? I think I fear become a Cobalt expert :)

Have we solved anything here? No, but like you said, “When faced with a choice, you have the opportunity to learn something about yourself.”

Public release? Your book? I’m looking forward to it!

I read that poem when I was in my 8th standard in school and I used to have two interpretation of his poem.

Firstly, was that of the universal dilemma that everybody faces during ones life and when s/he have to decide which one to take. And we all take a choice of our liking but always thought that the other would have been better.

Secondly, he was also revealing the way he chooses to become a poet instead of his (a yankee's) traditional profession of farming and cultivation in those days. And that decision of his had made all the difference in his life. He was also pondeing what would have
happen if he had stick with his profession of farming and lived a normal life rather than choosing this life of a poet where he is recognized and well known.

this so touching

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