Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler…
We live in a world obsessed with the “road not travelled”. It’s an understandable fixation. As Robert Frost perhaps recognised, the unknown maintains a powerful hold on our imaginations and not just about paths through shaded woodland. History is our forest. What if Hitler had died in 1914 or JFK bent down to tie his shoelaces at that fateful moment in 1963? Forget about the constant “whataboutism” of the current tedious culture war. We have always been in thrall to “whatifism” and it shows no signs of easing anytime soon.
