What is My Directive? by Lila Glanville ’22
The line “Lost enough to find yourself” from Robert Frost’s Directive makes me stop. It presses a pause button in my brain: Am I lost enough to find myself? How do I know when I have found myself? In order to be lost enough to find your self do you have to actually lose something? Unending question query… Who will I be? What will I do? Where will I go? What can I control? What can I choose? What is the point of this? How do I know what I am doing is what I should do? What I am supposed to do? Is there even a supposed to? Lost enough to find yourself Does this mean when we are little we are not lost and as we grow we become lost? Trying to answer all these questions is hard, especially when they all spark more and more questions. Really, the cycle can be infinite-everlasting. I do not think it is possible to narrow this down to one succinct directive. Especially, because I am still evolving and discovering who I am. I am of the belief that a well rounded human being has more than one directive that serves a purpose in guiding them in different aspects of life. One cannot just be one thing or another. Our genetic makeup is too complex for that. Our minds think and act too much for that. However a directive can be all encompassing. Maybe I am interpreting Frost’s words too seriously. Maybe I do not have to be as lost as I think I do. Maybe I just need to be physically lost to discover what my point is. Maybe I am looking at them too critically, to cynically, too much looking? Maybe I just need to be? Maybe I have taken his words out of context? I took them out like this because they have a message standing alone. The entirety of the poem is incredibly thought provoking and (word that is hard to understand but worth understandings/mysterious(recondite?)). Each line has its own message and statement that is up for interpretation. Each line flows into the next, often with a profound meaning waiting to be uncovered again. Waiting to be unsurfaced. All together it is a compilation of Frost’s thoughts on paper. Still I am confused. I have ideas, mini directives. They are changing and not solid, nothing clear or succinct. Growing and evolving with me. It is just foggy thoughts and feelings. Crowded overthinking brain. I have walked in the woods alone, sat in the woods alone. I have had conversations with myself, I have had conversations with my parents and peers, I have journaled, I have typed, I have stared. I have waited and come to the conclusion my directive is not just going to fall if I do not dig. cont. on pg. 38
OUTCROPPINGS • Volume 43 •
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