Life finds a way.
I’ve been thinking about the trees and the clouds and how they look so similar. Cumulus clouds like the tops of oak trees, and stratus clouds like cypresses. I googled “why do trees and clouds look similar?” I found an answer not to this question, but to a similar one: “why do roads, rivers, tree branches, and leaf veins look similar?”
One answer explained constructal law: “for a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.”
Another answer said “life is dendritic. It creates more surface area to distribute or absorb nutrients.” I’d never heard this word before. I looked up the definition: “having a branched form resembling a tree.”
I quit my job earlier this year. It wasn’t the worst job in the world. So many jobs are much, much harder. But I was unhappy there. It was like a tree had fallen into a main waterway and every day was a renewed effort to recon with the blockage and search for ways to clear it.
My coworker and I would complain to each other about our daily struggles at work. One day they said “I should just be grateful.” I couldn’t find a way to be grateful, which is an ugly thing to admit because I had a lot to be grateful for. I could not clear the tree, nothing could flow through the stream, and the stream couldn’t evolve and branch. I felt like I was constantly swimming upstream, trying to defy gravity, or fighting the wrong fight. Too much effort spent on the wrong thing. Too much time spent unsatisfied and ungrateful. If I chose to be there, I needed to find a way to be grateful.
I couldn’t find a way to stay and be grateful. So I decided to clear the blockage and branch out, hopeful that something better was ahead.
I watched Jurassic Park for the first time the other night. This line, spoken by Jeff Goldblum’s character Dr. Ian Malcom, sums it up well:
“Life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, crashes through barriers painfully maybe even dangerously. Life finds a way.”