"Reign of Idle" - Deep Thought Entry

“Reign of Idle”

WC-459

I have found as I walk through the day, the easily ignorable tree strikes me today for some reason. I find it unusually brilliant in its form. Of course it must be, the tree has been around for longer than anything on the face of the earth, save stone. Some twisted and crooked as the ground they have been placed, while some seem to copy the Mandelbrot set repeating a tried and true pattern.  In of itself the tree does little. It preforms one simple function. Collect energy and transform it into food. In the tree’s apparently meaningless growth lies the trees indomitable secret. The growth doesn’t appear random to a tree. All the tree understands, feels, and enjoys is growth. What seemly represents an imperfection is a calculated and precise branching of leaves to collect more solar energy. Each twist makes the tree stand stronger, or is repaired damage from a strike. Every leaf created exactly where the tree needs it. All parts a purpose, all choices mandatory. As an engineer I can’t help but admire a tree preform what I should do with ease.

I only wish people could take such an enlightened route, using all they need, no more.  If such morals of tree could be applied to man our problems would surely lighten. This dream of course proves impossible by our own imperfections. A tree does not possess an ego. I cannot be jealous of another tree which grows larger. It cannot wage war, burning another tree to the ground. This perhaps explains their constantly strong numbers. These imperfections, no perfections, leave them defenseless to our imperfections.  We slash them to the ground, burn their dead, live inside them, and yet they continue to stand idle.  No such people exist in this world. They become a message of peace and a vessel of our sympathy to nature.  The mascot to our understanding of the impact we all create.

The tree is not without a plan however. Even with no defenses it will live past our speck of an existence. For every molecule of CO2 that we artificially create, we bring the atmosphere to the tree’s liking. Every breath we take feeds them, every piece of a coal a new sapling in the making. For even when we destroy the earth, be it climate, or a reign of fire, or a great sea rise, trees shall stand to our imperfections. It has lived past worse.
So next time you see the scraggily branches of a pitiful sapling. Realize that you will be a frail old citizen by the time it has reached the beginning of its life, realize that it doesn’t need oxygen; it only grows, selfishly soaking up the sun, regardless of what we do.