The trees of interest

 

2,000 years ago an ugly young man stood in a field that had three trees in it.  Most people were flocked around the central tree, which bore edible fruit, and never paid much attention to the other two trees.  This is because one no longer bore fruit and the other had fruit of a taste that was strange to most.  As the ugly young man stood in the field he decided that he would go try the fruit of the tree that most people weren’t at because he had his fill of the central tree.  He was not the first to have done this, another man before him at a much greater age did the same, but he was too old to tell others about the tree so he wrote down everything he thought about it.

 

So the ugly young man ate of the fruit and found it a delightful change from the other fruit.  As he picked the fruit of this tree he began to admire the appearance of the tree.  Every so often he would wander over to the central tree and pick other young men to eat from the other tree and they too would find it’s fruit appealing for a time, but would usually wonder back to the other tree once more.  One of the young men stayed, for he enjoyed the fruit of this tree as much as the first man who was no longer young, but still quite ugly.  For distracting too many young men away from the central tree the old men at the second tree tried the ugly old man and made him to die. 

 

After a while the second young man who truly enjoyed the fruit of the second tree started writing down and speaking about what he thought of the tree.  He formed a club of people who enjoyed the fruit of the tree and they’re from dusk till down they admired it and its fruit underneath its branches.

 

One of the members of the club, also a young man, decided after the second young man died that he didn’t like the tree.  He said “How may I enjoy the taste of this tree if I do not know the name of it?  How may I admire this tree if I don’t know what its pieces are called?  This tree’s fruit taste’s strange, I think it must be sick” When he first said this the other members of the club scoffed at him.  But in time after the death of the second young man the members grew old and went back to the first tree.  The third man alone was left to tend to the tree.  Everyday the man named, and drew the relation between the names, of the parts of the tree.  In time the man grew old and he took his one student at the tree and said: “Listen to me.  Don’t eat from this tree, its sick.  I haven’t figured out why yet, but I know that if I keep on naming it’s parts and figuring out what they do, smaller and smaller, and more and more, I will know what’s wrong with the tree and I will be able to fix it.  In all our years together I’ve been teaching you how to do this.  I’m going to die so I need you to carry on my work.  “

 

The student thinking himself cleverer than the master agreed to what the master said.  But after the masters death he thought this: The master has taught me well, but I have more strength than he ever did.  If I venture further out from the three tree’s of the field and conquer what is out there than surly I can teach everyone that is not here how to label and learn about the tree.  I will bring everyone here to see the tree and together we will all figure out much faster than I alone could why the tree is sick and then we can fix it.

 

So the young man went out and he conquered the whole world and he brought everyone that he conquered to the tree and he told them that if we fix the tree and it is no longer sick than all there problems would be solved….

 

…When I first learned to talk I walked up to this tree that the whole world had gathered around.  I saw since before I knew to talk that everyone was trying to understand the tree and that it bore fruit that they dare not touch except certain old ones of them that had permission and said very little after they had eaten of it’s fruit.  So I walked up to the tree and I explained it to those closest to it.  They gave what I said a seconds thought and said I was very clever but that I couldn’t understand the tree because I didn’t have the words that the master had first passed down and that they added to about the tree.  Then I left the circle around the tree and I went off and thought about what they said in anger. 

 

I said: “I will take their advice and learn the words of the tree and then come back and explain it again”.  And so I took people who were willing away form the circle for a few moments at a time and slowly had them teach me about the words of the tree.  I noticed that most the people around the tree were much older than me and that the people my age went to the central tree.  Lots of the older ones told me that I should eat from the central tree, but I knew that I understood the first tree that I saw before I could talk and I ignored the older ones who told me I should leave the tree until I was older.

 

Eventually I learned the words to the tree.  So I got up from the outside of the circle and began to work my way toward the central gathering of the tree.  However, by that time those who had gathered around it were so thick and so sure that they were about to fix the ailing tree that they wouldn’t let me back into there circle without a fight.  By this time I was too bored of the tree to fight them, so I left the circle around the tree.  A little while later they all began to realize that they had not really made any progress and they grew depressed.

 

Then I thought I’d write about the trees, and so I have.  If you’d like to hear what I have to say about the tree itself you’ll have to wait until I’m done eating from the fruit of the central tree and then I’ll figure out what to do next.