Tree Hugging, Should’ing and Mother Teresa
August 25, 2024
8 min read
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Newsletter
{Body}
Tree-hugging
In the natural world, every single animal must have at least some intelligence in order to problem-solve and survive.
Whales have local dialects and slang to communicate. Hawks work with wolves by showing them where prey is hiding. Bonobo monkeys can learn to use money. Octopus can figure out how to unscrew jars.
But what about organisms like plants or trees? Do they exhibit intelligent behavior, too?
Yes, definitely.
For instance, trees have been known to nourish their own offspring, without nourishing the saplings of others. They also choose when to shed their leaves, with certain individuals being more conservative (shedding closer to the summer) and others being more daring (waiting until winter). They apparently also respond “positively” towards their caretakers, and “negatively” towards their pruners.
That’s certainly just the tip of the iceberg, though. The more we study trees — fruit trees, evergreens, deciduous, and the like — the more we will discover their profound sentience and rich inner world.
{Mind}
Helping someone navigate difficult emotions
Over two years ago I released my most-popular YouTube video talking about the shame I felt as a young adult for being uncircumcised.
Many of the comments on this video were fine, but a few got under my skin (pun intended).
Colloquially, these types of comments are called “should'ing,” and are basically unhelpful for moving through negative emotions.
“You should be grateful;” “you should feel ashamed of yourself;” “men shouldn’t cry.”
But what happens when someone tells you you shouldn't be upset about a particular situation? It normally makes you more upset, right!?
In this case, when I read statements such as "don't be ashamed" or "you should be proud of your foreskin," my internal dialogue went something like this: "Ethan, you loser. How come you feel so much shame around this silly little topic? Why can't you just love yourself like everyone else!?"
That’s right, my initial reaction in reading those comments was actually to feel more shame, not less.
In other words, when we tell people how they should or shouldn't feel, it ends up perpetuating the very negative emotion we hope to free them from. Instead, by simply acknowledging where people are without judgement or advice, we support them in transmuting the negativity into something more productive.
{Soul}
If you expect the next President of the United States, artificial intelligence breakthrough or incarnation of Christ to end our societal woes, you are in for sore disappointment.
And that’s because you live in a co-created reality — a reality that is an aggregate of all participants’ desires and actions.
In other words, course-correcting will require a majority of us to align to integrity and truth, not just a select few.
And yet, expecting others to follow your lead in taking responsibility for the mess we’ve created is not only unreasonable, it entirely misses the point. You don’t take responsibility to manipulate others into taking responsibility! You do it because it’s the only real solution to a broken world.
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