What is My Directive? by Lila Glanville ’22

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

cont. from pg. 37

Meandering.

Through all of this contemplation, which felt, still feels, ridiculous and pointless, I think that I may have begun to settle on an over arching directive. Something that combines everything so I do not need to choose. I have a hard time taking myself seriously enough to have a conversation with myself. It feels stupid. I think too much to let myself get my ideas out; think everything has to be meaningful when really it could just be ful.

Guided by curiosity. Curious Searcher.

I am always looking ahead, looking for the next thing. Never wanting to be lost or stuck in the unknown. I want to know the unknown. I want to I know what I can do and what I have to do. What I will do. But I am also hesitant. What is the unknown? Do I really want to know the unknown? But if I do know is there a point?

However this is not how the world tends to work. In constantly looking forward I am forgetting to notice the present, the now, what determines the what will be. Seesaw balancing of living in the moment looking forward, planning ahead.

I will not always know. Most of the time I won’t and don’t until it happens. Que Sera Sera, Whatever will be will be Scary. Comforting. I cannot always be prepared.

I remind myself, breathe out, not in. Take a deep breath, bring everything in. Exhale, push everything out. Most people breathe but do not actually know how to breath. It is an innate thing all living things do in different ways. However we do seem to do it wrong. When asked to take a deep breathe most of us suck in instead of pushing out.

How do I know where I am supposed to go...If what I am choosing is the right thing to choose? How do I know what to do next? Is it just a feeling?

I know when something feels wrong. I know when something feels right. Sometimes the lines get blurred. The world is not black and white. Nothing is ever perfect nor complete. So how do I know what to do?

Unending question query;

Moving forward Answering questions, leaving questions unanswered. Looking forward to what is next in the moment, Up, Down, Around, Behind, Lost. Finding. Found.

Guided by the curiosity of doing the next right thing.

But what even is “right”?

cont. on pg. 39