The distorted popular

My daughter asked me about the interpretation of these lines from the very popular poem, "The Road Less Taken" by Robert Frost -

"Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;"

She wanted to know the exact meaning of the words 'just as fair'. As I explained it to her, I read the following two lines -

"Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same."

Wait wait... this means that the poet is saying that both the roads were pretty much the same. And I freaked out.

Not on the poem itself, because the meaning of the poet was clear. But on my own understanding of what the poem said. Or rather what I thought the poem said. Truth be told, I had never really read the poem properly, though it forms a integral part of my subconscious, and there have been several times that I have referred to it in conversations, with myself and with others. Stored as it is in my mind, the poet celebrates the doggedness of pursuing ones own unique vision, the risks involved in doing so, and passionately advocates following ones path - even though there have not been too many people who had earlier walked that path.

But the poet does not do that at all! The poet is saying that as the years go by, he probably would justify the path that he had taken by wistfully called it the "road not traveled", though in reality he had no means of knowing if the path indeed was not traveled - but the need to somehow see oneself as a hero, a lone traveler will make the poet deceive himself by calling the path so, in the future.

My appreciation of what the poet has written has jumped up several levels. My own estimation of how I think has taken two steps down. Two large steps down.

I, who snacks on words - how could I allow myself to subscribe to a popular opinion - without reading the poem itself? It did not take me even 2 minutes to know that the popular opinion and take away from the poem is very different from the way the poet intended it to be - and yet, yet, I took it to be true. I believed the popular opinion to be true, though I could have easily assessed for myself on whether it was true or not (which I did today).

Popular has the propensity to distort. Beware of the popular! And beware of your own propensity to blindly follow the popular.