Where There's Smoke

Back to the Road Not Taken (Choices)

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Robert Frost’s classic poem, The Road Not Taken. Also, October 21, 2015 has become known as Back to the Future Day because it is the exact date that Doc Brown, Marty McFly, and Jennifer travel to in the movie, Back to the Future 2.

Now, if you look at both of these works – The Road Not Taken and Back to the Future 2 – they might seem vastly different! But, beneath the surface, both works examine the idea of choice.

This week we dig deeper into Frost’s poem and discover that many people – including ourselves – have misunderstood its meaning. We lean on some insights from columnist David Orr and his new book, The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong. And we also talk about hard choices through some powerful ideas from Ruth Chang’s TED Talk on the same subject.

And all of this exists within a big hat tip to the Back to the Future trilogy. As Brett & Nick take on the pseudo roles of Marty McFly and Doc Brown to take listeners on a ride through time, as only they can.