There's no plot.
No character arc from bad to good.
It starts in a beautiful section of the woods.
Sunlight filters through the trees.
The natural forest sounds of a river flowing and birds chirping fill the soundtrack.
So what do you think happens next?
Nothing.
It's like someone walked into the forest, set up the camera to run for a few hours and then uploaded it on to YouTube.
You would expect a film like this to get about 10-20 views?
After all, how long does it take to actually get to a real forest from where you're living?
But there's something deeper operating here.
This is just one of a series of films.
The only difference between them is the setting.
So, the deduction would be that city dwellers do miss out on the natural wonders of nature.
And they're trying to compensate by soaking it in HD glory on their laptops or large TV screens.
The video I'm referring to was uploaded in 2017.
It has over 8 million views.
There are several others
The Eiffel Tower from a Paris apartment balcony.
These movies are playing on individual screens.
Meditative states of being in an escape from stressful lives.
Stories without morals
It was the inevitable tail that wagged the body.
Teachers telling us stories in primary school and in the end, asking what the 'moral' was.
Our early introduction to the concept of 'good' and 'bad' people.
As if they belonged to two distinct camps and lived different lives. Separated on the same planet.
Indian movies perpetuated the myth with no layers whatsoever.
Heroes were all good, villains all bad.
Like two ends of a battery, perfectly divided between extremes.
We were fed the awe-inspiring tales from Amar Chitra Katha.
As if a constant drip of 'good' values would seep into our beings and help us form a strong sense of 'values'
And the niggles we observed with a child's limited understanding were meant to be ignored.
But we loved Archie comics even though we didn't have a clue where 'Riverdale' was
The girls were so beautiful, it was breathtaking.
The characters seemed to have great fun.
And they were concerned about the same things we were.
Friends, school, college, food, parents and infatuations - though not necessarily in that order.
We related to them far better than all those moral tales.
But we were too guilty to admit it.
The road not taken
It was a joke.
The poem by Robert Frost.
A bit like discovering that the background of one of life's revelations was less than stellar.
Frost and his friend Edward Thomas went on frequent hikes through the woods.
Edward took his time over deciding which route to follow.
So, Frost wrote 'The Road Not Taken' as a joke, poking fun at his friend's indecision
Over the years, the poem became a lodestar
Audiences related deeply to the message as a metaphor about life's choices.
Like the Mona Lisa, it became one of the widely recognized poems.
And better known as 'The Road Less Traveled'.
Which connects to the last line about making difficult choices.
A sense of not knowing what the destinations in life were.
The way the poem ends - those two lines are both encouraging and inconclusive.
'I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference'
It does not say anything about success but greater awareness and learning.
And it leaves the interpretation to the reader.
We make decisions not knowing how they will turn out.
What happens, simple or profound is not up to us.
Even Frost had no idea.
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