Taking the fork in the road
'The expression "when you come to a fork in the road, take it" has been attributed to the baseball legend Yogi Berra, who used it as a humorous way of giving directions to his house.’ Upon investigation, it turns out that the road to his house shared a feature of the one in the photo above. Elevating the perspective of our usual two-dimensional world to the third dimension of height, it becomes clear that the fork rejoins itself.
This is not always the case! Sometimes the forks lead in horribly different directions. Everyone is aware of the situations where following a map or software instructions has led to a dead end, an impassable trail, or across a collapsing bridge.
In life, as in road maps, taking the wrong path can lead to disaster. And of course in life, there’s seldom a way of knowing the result until we are irretrievably along said path. Or, more usually, the chosen path leads us into a different life situation than would have been the result on the other path.
We all can identify situations in our own personal histories where taking a different path, making a different choice, would have changed our lives completely. We will never know. If the Everett-DeWitt Interpretation of reality is correct, we have actually made all those decisions in all possible variations. But despite various treatments of this concept in fiction, we can never know. This is the very definition of a non-scientific “theory” - it is not falsifiable. It is not even testable at any level of technology we can envisage.
So what is one to do when faced with fundamental decisions? The classic approach is to make two lists, a “pro” list and an “con” list. Some suggest weighting the list elements. Some suggest simply totalling the number of points in each. Whatever the technique, this is just a way of rationalizing our subconscious preferences.
Another approach, probably used by default in most cases, is to flip a real or metaphorical coin. Followers of Tarot or I Ching probably favour this type of approach. Again, subconscious preferences probably are the determining factor, not what the yarrow stalks or cards or coins show.
We never know all the facts when making our choices. The best we can do is gather all the obvious facts, temper them with our experiences, ignore the simplest answers, and move on. Discussing the situation or choices with a trusted friend is perhaps the wisest option. Another perspective always uncovers factors to which we are blind. Even the look on the friend’s face when one describes the situation can make the choice obvious!
In the end, we make the best choice we can, given the information available at that time, trying to allow for and compensate for prejudices and biases. Then we live with the results of that choice. Years later, if we survive, we can say to ourselves, “Current knowledge does not inform past decisions.”