What is this enchanted forest you speak of? Well let me explain to you a very complex yet enlightening story that I believe is the origin of my internal conflicts with nature and money.
In elementary school, our playground was a forest. We had huts, trees, stores... we basically replicated everyday society in hobbit form. It was a place of adventure and delight- some of my BEST memories of childhood took place here.
Firstly, I am a lover of nature and a hippie at heart. Perhaps this was embedded in me by my 24/7 running around in and out of trees, hiding behind bushes, rolling around in the mud and transporting worms from one side of the forest to the other.
But there was something that did not fit in to the "nature" of the "enchanted forest". The architect of this beautiful playground had placed wooden tables that resembled "stairs" in the middle of the forest.
As confused, naive, little people, we thought, "what on earth are these?". Well, replicating society, we concluded..."ahhh, these are shops and display stands so we can make lots of money and be rich!". So what did us little people do?
We decided that our main currency in the forest would be "spotted leaves" and these table stands would be our shops. If you don't know what spotted leaves look like check out below.
Ironic as it sounds, when we were little, money did grow on trees. At least until the trees ran out of leaves.
(If you have not caught on by now, this is where my internal love for money and consumer products comes in).
Our stores consisted of little creative products, sporadically priced. We sold ivey leaves wrapped into cones and filled with soil. We sold pine cones with leaves jabbing through it. We sold rock dust and wooden sticks with branches wrapped on one end. I know what you're thinking... you're thinking, WHY on earth would ANYONE waste their money (in our case, spotted leaves) on these useless tools?
My answer to you is simple: why don't you ask yourself why you bought that t-shirt from that store the other day... yes that shirt, you know which one...the one with the the sparkles on it...
you answer, "because it is aesthetically pleasing and it looks pretty".
Well, so did the ivey leaves wrapped into cones filled with soil! Both are useless, but pretty.
Anyway, i'm getting off track...
Us little people became obsessed with spotted leaves. Everyone had to have a ziplock bag of it. We needed it...we didn't really know why but we knew we needed it. One day, there was a buzz of controversy going around the forest. The teacher's had wrapped caution tape around the last "spotted leaf tree" so we could not get to it. I remember exactly what it looked like:
It resembled the charlie brown christmas tree... it was terribly pathetic and had only ONE spotted leaf dangling from the top. We all wanted it, we wanted it SOOO VERY BAD... but we knew we couldn't take it or we would get into trouble. We had exploited the spotted leaf trees so much that we had no more spotted leaves.
It was a very sad day.
six years later, I went back into the "enchanted forest" to see if anything had changed. The new little people were running around like hippies but bartering at the shops like fools. This time, their currency was "prickly leaves"
But why prickly leaves? well, because there was more prickly bushes than spotted leaves in the forest and they needed something new to exploit.
I think to myself, "ahhh, nothing has changed." Just like me, these new little people will grow up internally conflicted and confused about their love for Dasani Water and Starbucks as well as their love the ocean the the trees.
I guess they'll just have to wait until they are 22 in order to reflect back and realize that it was really the fault of the "Enchanted Forest" that has contributed gravely to all their internal confusions.
love it, so true.
ReplyDeleteNothin like those spotted leaves purchases. once i bought a mini paint set, and it was one of the best days EVER.