A tree is fascinating object. In some ways they absolutely dwarf humanity in achievement, standing for thousands of years, through floods, droughts, wars, standing longer than many languages, cultures, and civilizations. Are trees free? What fool would even ask such s thing, clearly. Except it is a valid and interesting question. They rely on themselves entirely do they not?
No indeed, trees manage to stand for eons because of the ground they are in. They dig deep into an old foundation, and the taller and mightier they are, the more deeply rooted, and dependent they are on it. A young tree might even be uprooted and planted somewhere else. Not an old tree.
People are like this in a sense. The young ones can flit between ideas and passions, but as they grow old, the ground hardens aroud them. Sure they can withstand more perhaps, but at the expense of what? Carl Jung is famous for his statment that the joy of adulthood is the rediscovery of the freedom lost while the roots grow deep. In this sense mankind is not like the trees. He can build not only the roots, but also the foundation.
What man or woman today can truly stand on their own two feet, free? Few indeed. Liberty is not a valued thing. Rights, we hear no end of them, but like a potent drug, they only addict mankind to ever need more. For rights are granted, liberty is taken. Only one strong enough to build a foundation of something old and wise can sink their roots deep thereinto, and stand alone, free, like the trees.
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