Berry, Wendell, 73

Best American Poetry (Lehman, ed.), 95

“Birches,” 10, 57–58

Bishop, Elizabeth, 86

Boy’s Will, A, 21, 28, 29

brain:

contralateral control by, 121

and neuroscience, 129

split-brain research, 120–24

unconscious neural activity in, 126–27

Braithwaite, William Stanley, 39

Brodkey, Harold, 56

Bromwich, David, 52

Brower, Reuben, 96

Brown, Brené, 160

bundle theory, 148, 152

Bush, George W., 131–33, 155

Camus, Albert, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” 113, 115

Capgras syndrome, 120

Carnegie, Dale, 135

causal determinism, 125, 151

“cautious,” use of term, 87–88

chaos, 149

Chiasson, Dan, 85

choice, 99–130

act of, see decision making

age of, 129

ambiguity in, 16, 63–64, 88, 129, 160

in American culture, 12–13

chance vs., 9

concept of, 100–101, 116

conscious, 118

consequences of, 84, 98, 141, 144–45

existential significance in, 76

by free agent acting freely, 104, 125–30

happiness via, 113

how-to books about, 108–9, 111–15, 126

idealized (“pure”), 103–4

illusory nature of, 115

of interpretation, 97, 117

leading to improvement, 104–5, 113

life-changing, 78

meaningful, 124

choice (cont.)

missing aspects in this poem, 101–3

moral consequences of, 102

multiple options, 102

never made, 12

not to choose, 103

other possibilities foreclosed in, 91, 97

patterns of, 107

possibility of, 161

sameness of options in, 76–78, 103

subjection to, 75

telling the story of, 118–19

choice blindness, 123, 126

chooser, 131–61

alone, 152, 158

authenticity of, 134

Bush as decider, 131–33, 155

as changed by choice, 141

control by, 133

and personhood, 140–45

as responsible agent, 146

and the self, see self

Chrysippus, 125

Chun Siong Soon, 127

Churchill, Winston, 10

closure, fear of, 92

Collected Poems (Frost), 32

collectivism, 112, 155

compatibilists, 128–29

Complete Poems (Frost), 45

confabulation, 119–24

confusion, overcoming, 98

“Constant Symbol, The,” 99

control, 16, 133, 163–64

corpus callosum, 120

Cox, Sidney, 139

Coyne, Jerry, 126

Cramer, Jeffrey S., Robert Frost Among His Poems, 165

crossroads, 163–72

centrality of, 165

decisions made at, 64, 88, 164, 172

dilemma of, 165–66

and doorways, 171–72

emblems of, 168

importance of, 170

and magic, 169

meeting one’s self at, 142

pause as essence of, 166–67

refuse disposal at, 168–69

return to, 95

symbolism of, 166

“two roads” theme, 165

cultural priming, 159

Dante Aligheiri, 73

Inferno, 34

“Death of the Hired Man,” 27

decision, inability to perceive, 123, 124

decision making:

about trivialities, 103

as act of will, 73

archetypal representation of, 100

brain activity prior to, 126–27

by coin flip, 28, 87

consequences of, 164, 172

at crossroads, 64, 88, 164, 172

difficulty of, 88, 129

meaning of, 99

person changed in, 75–76

prolonging the moment of, 91

research in, 109–10, 112, 114

Declaration of Independence, 104

Descartes, René, 146

“Design,” 27

determinism, 125–30

DeVoto, Bernard, 46

Dickinson, Emily, 165

“difference” analyzed as word, 144–45

“Directive,” 92–96, 98, 170

doorways, 171–72

Dyer, Wayne, Your Erroneous Zones, 137, 138

Dylan, Bob, “Like a Rolling Stone,” 7

Eastern Poultryman, The, 20

effects of actuality, 39

egoism, 16

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 46–47

Eliot, T. S., 10, 34–35, 58, 95

and Bloomsbury group, 20

as The Egoist editor, 20

Prufrock and Other Observations, 34

The Waste Land, 6, 20, 31

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 163

Epictetus, 125

Etheridge, Melissa, 3

Ezekiel (prophet), 165

Faggen, Robert, 75

fallacy of substitution, 71

Favorite Poem Project, 5, 95

Finley, Guy, 138

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Great Gatsby, 7, 105

Flint, F. S., 154

Ford Motor Company, 1, 16

forecasting, affective (hedonic), 143

Franklin, Benjamin, 135

Frederick, Shane, 110

freedom, 104

free will, 114, 121, 125–30, 146

Fried, Itzhak, 126

Frost, Carol (son), 27, 56–57

Frost, Elinor Bettina (daughter), 27

Frost, Elinor White (wife), 21, 23–25, 28, 87

Frost, Elliott (son), 26

Frost, Irma (daughter), 27

Frost, Jeanie (sister), 22

Frost, Lesley (daughter), 26, 28, 29

Frost, Marjorie (daughter), 27

Frost, Robert:

on the act of writing, 89

ambitions of, 61

as American symbol, 10, 46, 47, 61

audiences of, 9–10, 11, 34, 35, 36, 42, 54–55, 63–64, 87

awards and honors to, 45, 47

belief in personal agency, 153

birth and early years of, 22–23

celebrity of, 10–11, 12, 21, 41, 46, 55

contradictions of, 63–64

control sought by, 116–17, 118

as craftsman, 19

death of, 48–49, 61

dramatic masks assumed by, 85

in England, 13–14, 87

epitaph, 88–89

evasiveness of, 86, 89, 116, 139–40

family of, 26–27, 28, 46, 116

on form, 62

and identity, 12, 22, 46, 164

and liminality, 169–70

myth of, 49, 52

perception of authenticity in, 43

and performance, 39, 40–44, 47–48, 58, 73, 82–83, 89, 139–40, 167–68

and the poem, 154

popularity of, 10–11, 41, 63

process as everything to, 91–92

reserved nature of, 86–88

return to U.S., 40, 41

risks taken by, 87, 89

success of, 38, 41–42, 45, 46

as teacher, 28, 40

travel to Russia, 48–49