Trees are fascinating creatures. If one should lop the top off of a sapling, the growth-nodes directly below the cut will send forth shoots that, if left to their own devices, will keep reaching for the sky until they erase all but the last signs of injury. Some trees, such as hybrid poplars, grow so large within a few decades that they become hazardous to power lines and dwellings alike. The speed with which these poplars attain great height and wide circumference means that they will provide much useful lumber once they are felled. Their felling, however, shall require specialized equipment, many thousands of dollars, and much personal risk, which is why they still stand, today. On the one hand, these poplars are a nuisance; on the other hand, they are beautiful and majestic beings that are only doing what they were designed to do: to grow tall, quickly.
Human bodies function differently. Our limbs don't grow back once they are removed, and our bodies tend to stop growing once they have reached a terminal height. We surmise that an individual's maximal height is determined by a range of factors, including epigenetic markers, food supply, and such environmental conditions as average daily temperatures and levels of atmospheric pollution. Human minds, however, and our elusive but ebullient spirits, are more akin to the tree than we might image. Cut someone down to size, and she springs right back. Hack away (verbally, of course) at a person's high-flying dreams, and she aspires merely to greater heights. Such is the resilience of the soul that it will emerge from the ashes of its erstwhile destruction time and again, through Holocaust, gulag, and Inquisition, suffering the slings of televised content and the arrows of religious fervor but always and again re-inhabiting the pulsating core of these our poor mortal coils.
Human amputees often suffer from something called phantom limb syndrome, a condition characterized by the experiencing of pain in such parts of the body as are no longer attached to it. Do trees suffer from phantom branch syndrome, always yearning for tops that were lopped off and pining evermore for twigs and berries that will never be? I think that, similar to the more psychologically-resilient persons among us, trees accept the lot thrust upon them by the shifting winds of Fortune and make do with such gifts as they receive, even ones that come cloaked as curses. To conquer the desire to judge things as good or bad according to a narrow, human view of the universe is among our greatest challenges. Who among us can know for certain that what is lamb today won't be wolf tomorrow? Not I, dear friend, but, then, I am but a lowly whorphan of poor and stunted intellect.
(The author does not intend to disparage of amputees, human or otherwise.)
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
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