I ponder what my life story would be if I were me but only living as a tree.

Oh, how easy my life would be if I were a tree. I wouldn’t be in Philosophy 716 learning about Booleans and mereology. I would be part of a community where I could just be a tree! I could live my life carefree, up in a conservatory where my pedigree is all that is remembered of me. I wouldn’t have to disagree on the philosophy of what it really means to be. I would be a tree, and to be would mean nothing to me! I wouldn’t have to worry about vaccines or COVID policies or about the coffee that seems to make me so jittery. I would have no extraordinary epiphany about epistemology that turned out to be just a misread of David Lewis’s philosophy. If I were a tree I would never think of the allegories hidden in the stories that seem so dearly to haunt me. That would be an absurdity! For trees don’t have any psychology; they only live through biochemistry.

How simple that life would be, living unimaginatively, having no responsibility, just experiencing the tranquility of being a tree. Especially, I would be stationary for all of eternity. Or is it just an eternity because I am a silly human being perceiving time differently? An eternity to me would just be a lifetime for a tree. Surely, as a tree I wouldn’t feel any similarly to how I feel as a human being. That’s essentially why I wanted to be a tree!

But if I were a tree, I would be placed in one arbitrarily. I couldn’t choose to be in front of Philosophy at Columbia University. I could be placed in a forest so instantly and hear through my roots the demolishing of every other tree around me getting uprooted so rapidly. I could land close to the sea and get consumed so quickly by global warming as time for me would move so speedily. For I would be a tree and your eternity would only be a moment in my history. Thirty years before the disappearance of Hawaii would feel like a bee zipping right past me. I could be born in a backyard where human beings didn’t like where I happened to be. They would break the trunk right off me then rip my roots up so haphazardly. That would be very mean and I would be dead so instantaneously. Oh, how scary the unforeseen possibility of being born as a tree in the wrong scene would be!

But maybe, just by luck of establishing me into a tree, I could be planted in a place where I only make cherries. I would have green leaves and provide shade for teens to fall in love under me. Indeed, they would meet because they love my cherries! They would peer from opposite sides and catch eyes so energetically. They would smile so sweetly and have such rosy cheeks. Then one would deem it appropriate to sneak a critique about the cherries. 

“Have you accidentally swallowed a seed?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosy. I just wanted to see if you ever swallowed a seed.”

“I mean, sure I’ve swallowed a seed before in my lifetime. But as you can see, I’m not choking on a seed presently. I would be weeping if wasn’t breathing, screaming at you to help me!”

“And if you were screaming at me, I would speed around this tree to free you from the grasp of the seed.”

“And if you saved me, I would need to repay you immediately.”

“Ah, perhaps then,” the teen said as they proceeded around me, “you could simply ask to make a picnic for me!”

“A picnic abruptly under this tree would consist only of these cherries. I would have just choked on one, and that would be oh so very traumatic for me!”

“My apology, then maybe you could just take me on a date?”

“Oh, we’ll see!”

The teens would then come to me every morning to eat my cherries, but don’t worry they would never need to perform the Heimlich maneuver in any emergency. Eventually, they would stop being teens and marry and move to the city. And for all eternity, but for me just their longevity, they would be happy together, reminiscing about the times they laid under the cherry tree. 

Oh how easy my life would be if I were a tree, I think to myself as I prove the properties of set theory. Here, I go back to the reality of being in Philosophy 716. I return to my thinking in 2023 about my Booleans and mereology.

A Tree in front of Philosophy Hall via Bwarchives