The Garden of Forking Paths

I just came across Jorge Luis Borges, a Spanish writer, who wrote an acclaimed story of this title.

This title has really captivated me. It brought back to me an idea that really fascinates me- at each point of decision, we are at a fork. We choose one way. Leave the other untrodden. Then, some point down the road we chose, we again come across a fork. We again make a choice. That's how we keep branching out in life.

What if, somehow, we could come to know what we had left behind? What would have happened if, at a particular fork, we had gone the other way? What new forks would we have faced then? Life would have been so totally different from what it is today!

The number of Permutations that arise from such speculation is really mind-boggling. It always leaves me dazzled. And, wondering.

A few months ago, when I had read Richard Bach's One, this idea had come to the forefront again. And now, this story comes so close to exactly making the same point.

There are times when I think whether I'll ever be able to write as well as the greats I admire. But then there come times like now, when this consideration ceases to matter altogether. What remains is just the idea. And, the fact that I should write just to get my idea across.

Literature is nothing but sharing of ideas. And, I am more and more beginning to think of Literature as one, borderless democratic world, where everyone shares their ideas. Ideas reign supreme. Writing a book is just a way of discussing your idea with the world. The book is just the medium.