Journey of a Single Step

Long ago I studied a computer language called LISP and ever since have remained fascinated by all things self-referential. LISP has been around for nearly 50 years and is still produced in a few niche markets by aging ǖbernerds locked behind the gray metal doors of some dim subbasement. I picture their faces lit sickly green from the glow of ancient cathode ray tubes as they construct their arcane glyphs in obeisance to Hector, the God of Recursion. One day, when these reclusive architects steal back to the nether places from whence they came they will take with them the last benighted stack of LISP code. I imagine it being led away on slender matching parentheses, clinging to the very end like ivy on brick.

Once on a business trip to Baltimore I conducted a session on Introduction to Design using computer aided design (CAD) workstations — very advanced back in the day; historical artifacts now. Being new to the customer-facing world and entirely untrained in presentation skills I thought I would break the ice with some humor. So I told this joke: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those that divide people into two kinds, and those that don’t.”

The entire class instantly fell into a kind of meditative coma; their faces replaced by porcelain masks, smooth and still as bees in amber, betrayed only by the stray facial tic or two. I remember hearing a faint hissing noise which I later realized was the sound of air molecules striking my ear drum, disrupting what would have been a moment of peaceful and absolute silence. A more experienced practitioner of social dynamics could have salvaged this disaster with something smoothly self-deprecating, but I just plowed ahead, silently vowing never to repeat my ill-fated attempt at recursive jocularity.

You can see it on the way to Durham on I-85, a lifeless gray oak standing alone amidst a forest of emerald green. If it were framed against a wind-swept dune fronting an impossible sea this oak would have what artists call “stark beauty”. But there is no such supporting landscape here, just a solitary arboreal sentinel bearing silent testament to eager time. In a forest brimming with variety and change, this old oak tree is a contradiction, the deadwood serving as a grim reminder of what awaits us all. In the end, the hope, the promise, the energy of the new and vibrant gives way to the pessimism of the old and tired.

Yet, I do not think of decline and decay when I see this oak; rather, I think of the baobab tree. The baobab stores sufficient water in its massive, corky trunk to survive the extremely dry conditions in its native habitats of equatorial Africa, India and Madagascar. It is fire resistant, insect proof and is thought to live thousands of years, although claims of great longevity remain unverified because the baobab’s trunk produces no rings. When a baobab dies, it collapses from the inside into a fibrous mass; soon dispersed by the wind. Thus, the Bushmen of Senegal believe that the baobab does not die but simply disappears.

There is a wonderful story in Indian mythology. A human woman falls in love with the Sun-God. He initially returns her love but, as love is wont to do, he eventually leaves her. Abandoned, she pines away and eventually dies of a broken heart. Her cremated ashes, blown by the fickle wind, spawn a tree wherever they touch; yet so great was her sadness that even in death she could not bear to look upon the Sun. These trees bloom only at night with their flowers dropping at the first light of dawn. Today this tree, the night blooming jasmine, is sometimes called The Tree of Sorrow.

No legends follow the old oak out on I-85. It may have been struck by lightning or suffered an attack of burrowing insects or other natural cause. And while its inevitable disappearance will not be as mysterious as the baobab, it is being recycled nonetheless. The surge of life that happens every spring will pass it by. With each season its limbs will become a more brittle, its bark more gnarled, its future more certain. Each year it will be a lighter shade of gray, eventually becoming so clear and pale that light will seem to pass through it altogether.

We are all flowers on the Tree of Sorrow, revealing our secrets in the dark not knowing with the first light if, or when, we will fall. This is the life we have, our great journey of a single step; replacing each new story, each new telling with another to be told. Legends tell of the great self-devouring snake Ouroboros, encircling the earth with recursive symmetry. Accompanied by the distant sound of horns, we walk under the Baobab, the Oak and the Jasmine, constantly re-creating ourselves with all the other things that begin anew as they end.