The life that one has led, shaped by the choices one has made, can be represented in three dimensions by a tree. A tree senses its environment without really seeing it. It feels more sunlight for longer periods of time in certain points in space and in others it feels shade and darkness more often. Based on this, it decides where to grow, where to send its next branch or where to create more leaves, and even which branches and leaves should be allowed to die. But the tree doesn't know what lies ahead, only what seems to be a good idea, just like a human deciding to take its life in one direction or another. The tree and the human can both be said to operate on their unique forms of intuition, hopefully letting that intuition guide their choices in life. In both cases, the decision maker is partly blind, never able to fully appreciate its decision before it makes it. A tree must know when to give up on certain efforts and focus energy on what matters, in the form of letting lower branches and leaves die so that energy is not wasted nourishing parts of itself that will be shaded by its own upper, newer branches anyway. In the same way, humans must discard parts of themselves, old ways of thinking, in order to be able to focus more energy on more important things. This can be thought of as a mini death and rebirth cycle, within the greater cycle of the life of an organism, and is necessary for any kind of growth. Just like a tree is unknowingly bound to its spot, where ever it sprouted, a human also has many predetermined aspects to its existence. A human may be born with a genetic defect, or to a mother who abused alcohol or who was abused herself during pregnancy, or to parents that have no capacity whatsoever to provide an intellectually stimulating environment, or in a society that discourages free thinking and encourages blind obedience. A human's ability to adapt its emotions and ways of thinking to new challanges in life, its accrued intelligence, is largely shaped by factors outside of its control early in life. Some trees are born on the edge of a cliff, destined to grow for maybe a few years, with its roots clinging desparately to the side of the cliff, only to fall to its death after a hard rain that causes a rock slide. Such was its fate, outside of its control or knowledge. It would always end up that way, but because it tried anyway, gave life the best shot it had, maybe it was able to reproduce and drop some seeds before it inevitably met its doom. A human must have that blind faith that its life is leading to something in order to fully realize its potential. So even though we might be destined to die next week in an unforseeable way, we must go on, keep up the effort, because eventually someone will be glad we did, even if we ourselves never see the point in any of it. Do what feels right, always.
