Two Roads Diverged…

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both….”

I suspect Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is still taught in high schools, and that it still both puzzles and inspires its readers. I encountered the poem as a junior or senior, when the roads before me seemed not just dual, but nearly infinite. The poem resonated then, and it resonates even now because we are still, daily, faced with choices that seem, if not infinite, at least multiple. Some are insignificant, others life-altering, and no matter how much we think we know, we can’t accurately anticipate their consequences.

Early on, I had great certainty about the road I was on.

For most of my childhood, I was mesmerized by the planets, the solar system, the galaxies, the makeup of the universe itself. Posters of early Soviet and American space missions plastered the walls of the bedroom I shared with my younger brother. I was six when the Russians launched Sputnik into space, and like many other kids, I decided that it was my duty to help America win the space race. From that moment forward, I focused my energies almost exclusively on math and science. My goal was literally to become a rocket scientist.

I entered college in 1969. That was the year we beat the Russians to the moon, and I hoped to be part of the effort that would take us to Mars, Venus, or wherever the next leg of the space race led. But almost immediately after starting my freshman year at Cornell, I realized I had a deeper, more abiding interest in art (writing and photography) and also in psychology. Although I was still on the road to fulfilling my childhood dream, that was no longer where my heart wanted me to go. Before that first semester ended, I abandoned my ambition to be a an NASA engineer.

This was not the last time I would choose a less-familiar road, but it was a pivotal one. It has shaped everything I’ve done in the ensuing half century.

But the new road was also not a single path. It had two lanes: art and psychology. Sometimes I traveled mainly on one, sometimes on the other, and often I’ve weaved between lanes like a drunk driver. I never left either lane for long. Witnessing this weaving has apparently been dizzying for some in my circle; one friend once described me, in an uncharitable moment, as “jumping from one thing to another like a cockroach.”

The grander aspects of roads and choices are a topic for another time and another post. The choice at hand, for me, is what to do with this blog and the related email list, and I have made it. Here, those two roads — art and psychology — are diverging.

Since my retirement from psychotherapy, writing, photography, and publishing have upstaged my focus on psychology. Email list providers track the number of people who open an email and click a link, and from this data, it’s clear that some of you are interested in this new direction, while others are not. So, rather than burden the uninterested, I’m launching an email list just for book-related posts.

By “book-related,” I mean not only posts related to the books I’m writing or publishing, but also broader discussions of:

• Fiction
• Nonfiction
• Photography
• Art
• Publishing and self-publishing

I’ve been publishing since 2014 and have learned a thing or three about the process. Publishing-related topics will include:

• The best resources I’ve found for publishing services such as book cover creation, editing, proofreading, and formatting
• The best resources I’ve found for book marketing
• How to prepare eBooks and paperbacks for Amazon’s desktop publishing platform
• How to upload to other publishing platforms such as Google Play, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books
• Ways to promote books through advertising, giveaways, content marketing, and promotion sites

and more.

Robert Frost’s narrator had to choose between two roads, but you don’t have to.

Not here, anyway. The new list and the old are mutually exclusive; that is, what I publish on one I won’t be publishing on the other. You can stay subscribed to The Art of Balance and also subscribe to the new list, Transformations Press, if you want a mix of art and psychology. Or, you can choose the list that most closely matches your interests. On the blog, I’ll be posting everything.

To subscribe to the Transformations Press list, click here: Subscribe to the Transformations Press email list

I’ll be kicking off the Transformations Press list with some free books, all published (surprise!) by Transformations Press.

Click the covers, below, to download Kindle versions, which you can read on a Kindle or any device that runs the free Kindle app. These books are also available, free, on other eBook platforms such as Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble.

 

 

 

And that’s the news for today in this corner of the Internet. See you soon in one place, the other, or both.

David

P.S. Once again, to subscribe to the new list, click here: Subscribe to the Transformations Press email list

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Copyright 2022, David J. Bookbinder 

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Books:
Street People: Invisible New York Made Visible
Street People Portfolio: Invisible New York Made Visual
The Art of Balance: Staying Sane in an Insane World
Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas

Online Courses:
Mastering the Art of Balance: Stay Sane in an Insane World
Art of Balance Basic Training: Stay Sane in an Insane World