The Forest and Tradition

Introduction

This Sunday, the breeze at night was a cool contrast to the blasting heat most of the day. The wind picked up from the usual slight wisps here and there. And I just stood in front of our house, admiring the park in front of us. More like a tiny forest really. There aren’t any paths, just compacted, clay-like soil, riddled with mosquitos.

But as I stood there, an idea came to me. Probably not original, nothing is new under the sun. But certainly, something I haven’t seen or heard from anyone or anything else.

As I observed the forest, what came to mind was how a plant reproduces. Flower, seed, then new plant. I immediately thought of how a hypothetical forest would have propagated itself. There would’ve been an original tree or group of trees that reproduced into even more trees.

As I looked at the brighter trees that were picked into view by the moon and the darker shades of the trees that are closer to the center of the park, I thought of how (at the time I thought it was so) forests came to be/started and how it somehow reflected the dichotomy of tradition vs modernity.

But, as I did my research to write this blog, I found out that forests don’t start this straightforwardly, duh. But here me out…

Disclaimer

While forests cannot be perfectly old trees at the center and younger trees the farther from the center you go, our conceptions of ideas, issues, and culture are often generalizations and abstractions from the nuanced, specific, and oftentimes multi-faceted ideas, issues, and culture we face.

We often abstract and generalize our conceptualizations so that we may make a point, send a message, or teach a lesson that isn’t too convoluted with the details that are often part of what we’re trying to highlight.

And so with this analogy, my hypothetical forest is almost perfect. Originating from an original group of trees, seeds are distributed outwardly from that central tree, and from those new trees, more trees grow outward creating a quasi-perfect forest.

The Forest

Imagine this quasi-perfect forest. The oldest—more likely than not—strongest tree/s in the center, tall, thick, solid, painted with scars on its bark, well rooted, untoppleable, a bit dry, and some of its heartwood hollow, almost mimicking a cave. They’re rarely the ones who are noticed yet are the ones who provide the most shade around them.

The trees after them are a little younger but almost on par with the older ones. A little shorter than the oldest, but probably the strongest trees in the forest. They constitute most of the population of the forest and are the ones who, from the outside, cover the older trees from being seen. Some of these middle-aged trees have seeded so far away from their parent seed that if you stood next to it, you couldn’t make out where it came from. Though I doubt it would be easy to make out where any tree came from.

The farther you go from the center the younger, thinner, and shorter the trees become. Until you reach the forest’s border; scattered with shorter, more nimble, shallow-rooted, and smaller-leafed trees. These trees depending on where they are in the forest, suffer the most or the least. They’re the most affected by strong gusts of wind, and the ones first to snap during a storm. And if they don’t break, they contort and sometimes cannot be put back to their former shape.

The Analogy

The outer grounds of this forest are our current times’ challenges, society, culture, and events. The stronger wind, the unshaded sunlight, and the most probable exposure to animals or people could destroy the younger trees.

The innermost, older trees are our elderly or anyone with a more conservative/traditionalist view of life and the world. Their view of the outer grounds is covered by what they, or what they think they’ve been through, and yet because they’ve survived for so long, are now this great height, size, and strength, have the confidence, and sometimes the arrogance, to comment, share, or state things that they cannot or will not see. Like, say, the real experiences of the younger trees, they invalidate because they think the younger ones are going through exactly the same thing they did.

The middle-aged trees are those who are a little more middle-aged in life. These trees, people, either go right to modernity in place of rigid and stale traditional values or are afraid of letting go of the traditional because of its safety and foundation. Or for whatever reason either resort to their respective sides.

The outermost trees are the youngest in our world. The younger Millenials, Gen-Z, and Gen Alpha. Like the younger trees, they’re the most susceptible to cultural, societal, and now, digital gusts of wind. They’re the ones most attached, and most in tune with modernity because, more likely than not, it’s been their whole lives.

An Imperfect Forest

Now, as perfect a forest as that may sound, real forests aren’t that way. There’s rarely to never a central group of oldest trees because the oldest trees in the world are a whole forest of old trees. Its seeds never spread solely in an outward-ring way, forests are rarely ever one species of tree, and they have wildlife in them. Not to mention different seasons but let’s just stick to hot, very hot, wet, and very wet.

While these imperfections may seem to take away from my analogy, it perfects it. Opinions and beliefs aren’t exclusive to a certain age or generation. You aren’t going to instantly change your opinions when you hit 5, 25, 65 years old. Trees, like people, are affected by their surroundings, where in the forest they grow, and what trees, plants, and animals are next to them.

While I think my inner-to-outer forest forest analogy still stands, younger people can have traditional views and older people can have “modern” views.

Tradition and Progress

Something that most people get terribly wrong is that they correlate progress with modernism. And even worse, they correlate regression with traditionalism. The main argument for progress = modernism is the argument against traditionalism. For some reason, traditionalism has been equated with stern, rigid, out-of-date, irrelevant, or useless beliefs. But what the people who espouse anti-traditional beliefs seem to forget is that, before the dawn of technology, modernism, and post-modernism, tradition was our scientific method, it was the trial and error that has been happening for centuries. The mistakes made and the lessons learned from them are what tradition has given us.

So the absolutely false dichotomy of tradition vs progress should be done away with. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater has always led to the baby dying, using a shotgun to kill a fly will surely do more damage than good.

Think: the great rings of Ba Sing Se from the Avatar (not blue) universe. iykyk

An Idea

I’m sorting this idea out. An informal theory, if you will. Informal because it isn’t ever going to be published in a quantitative study or scientific paper. Though I hope it’ll give a new perspective to those who come across it.

I haven’t come up with a name for it yet. it’s a kin to holism, theories of everything, and Isomorphism. It basically posits that if something, an idea, a system, a phenomenon, an occurrence happens or is present in the same or closely similar way in multiple aspects of life, biology, the universe, and/or religion, it must be an absolute truth.

But, it’s still something I’m thinking of, studying for, researching.

Final Note

The lesson from this analogy is twofold, you can probably get more than two but this is what I want you to take from this:

1. Tradition can be blinding because of it’s density and immensity, but it isn’t to be thrown away on a whim.

2. Our beliefs and opinions shouldn’t be so easily swayed by a gust of cultural fad or an ember of new found passion.

Although we may be fallen humans, we aren’t trees that should so easily be swayed nor so hardhearted towards rational argument.