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| "Dream of Love" (1961) by Marc Chagall |
Have you ever had a realization similar to the one Nora had about the lives she's been choosing? How do you know when it is helpful to encourage someone else to dream big and when such encouragement can amount to projecting your own dreams and values on to someone else?How does the reference to Robert Frost’s poem (click here to read the whole thing) reinforce the advice Mrs. Elm gives Nora about considering lives?
In what way is our tendency to be monocular in our focus, or binary in our thinking, brought to attention and critiqued in this chapter? Consider what those terms mean: "monocular in our focus" and "binary in our thinking."
"I took the one less traveled by, which has made all the difference." I think that this reinforces the fact that she should consider all lives not just the most obvious ones. She needs to consider the one's that she never would've thought about because she never knows if one of them could be her perfect life. -Abigayle Shropshire
ReplyDelete“There is no right way to play; there are many ways. In chess, as in life, possibility is the basis of everything. Every hope, every dream, every regret, every moment of living.”
ReplyDeleteAs a race, we struggle with the belief that there is only one right way to do something. In life, there is only one route to success (going to college, getting a degree, and working your way up the corporate ladder to a desirable 9-5 position). We let ourselves down by avoiding the route which would bring about our own happiness (which would in turn lead to success) and instead measure our success by the happiness of those around us. We cannot truly see through other people’s eyes, so we cannot comprehend the reasoning for their way of thinking or the decisions that led them to the path they took. Anyone can look successful and put-together from the outside looking in, but truthfully, everyone has their proverbial skeletons in the closet. There is no success without failure, because without feeling the pang of failure, how will you ever know when you have truly succeeded?
Yes, I have. To me, the difference between projecting desires and encouraging desires is all in the language. To me, it's simple language choices like "make us proud" versus "make me proud"; it's all in how the encouragement is utilized. Is it to please themselves, or to please you? To me, the poem perfectly reflects the thought that should go behind one's desires. The binary of the choice is the obvious path, and the less-obvious path. At the end of the day, the contents themselves don't matter as an independent force. Rather, it's how the contents matter relative to the subject. Marriage might be the respectable route, but Nora still hates herself. This moment is what teaches Nora to take the "road less traveled." Take the route that matters to her.
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