When most people think of metamorphosis, they usually think of caterpillars turning into butterflies or tadpoles into frogs. If you’ve ever read The Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka, you may have thought of the hapless Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find himself changed into a giant insect. At first he thinks he is dreaming as a way to escape the boredom of his job as a traveling salesman. Unfortunately for Gregor, his metamorphosis is life-changing in an unfortunate and permanent way. One aspect of the Kafka story often overlooked is that the “ripple effect” of Gregor’s metamorphosis results in significant changes for others in the family.
A metamorphosis is usually thought to be more than a simple change. For most of us, one week rolls into the next that the differences from day to day seem insignificant. With a metamorphosis, however, the changes are life-changing and can’t be ignored. Whether the event is something typically considered positive (earning a college degree or a major promotion, winning a competition or a significant prize, falling in love) or negative (failing a course, having a major accident or illness, getting divorced), the experience is the proverbial fork in the road. As Yogi Berra famously said, “when you come the fork in the road, take it.” In his poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost said with more accuracy…
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We often fail to recognize the degree to which forks in the road, whether literal or metaphorical, present life-changing opportunities. Whether the fork is something typically seen as negative (major accident or illness, loss of a job, death in the family) or positive (an important accomplishment or promotion, a big raise, the birth of a child), we can’t evaluate the experience until time has passed. Near Death Experiences, for example, are initiated by a less-than-wonderful experience, such as a serious illness or accident, but eventually result in a changed (for the better) outlook on life.
When bad things happen, we are told to look for the silver lining. We are to assume that, however difficult the current situation, something positive is a possible result. My sense is that the metaphor is apt: we have to look for the silver lining if we are to find it. The positive aspect of major change isn’t necessarily immediately obvious. In fact, when we think that something really wonderful has happened, we may discover that what we thought of as “wonderful” turns out to be anything but. This is not to say, of course, that wonderful things don’t happen or shouldn’t be enjoyed. Yogi Berra said we are to take the fork in the road. Satchel Paige said, Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.
Something is, of course, gaining on you. That something is age. As Andrew Marvell famously said, “at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” When we’re young, we can’t hear the chariot, but the older we get, the more aware we become that something is, in fact, gaining on us. That awareness may be our single most important life-changing experience, a slow-moving metamorphosis of profound importance.