Monday, March 19, 2012

The Giving Tree


A mini life lesson from 1973:
You can never be satisfied by taking  all someone has to give, 
but giving is the key to true happiness.

"As Timothy P. Jackson, a former professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University put it:  
Is this a sad tale? Well, it is sad in the same way that life is depressing. We are all needy, and, if we are lucky and any good, we grow old using others and getting used up. Tears fall in our lives like leaves from a tree. Our finitude is not something to be regretted or despised, however; it is what makes giving (and receiving) possible. The more you blame the boy, the more you have to fault human existence. The more you blame the tree, the more you have to fault the very idea of parenting. Should the tree's giving be contingent on the boy's gratitude? If it were, if fathers and mothers waited on reciprocity before caring for their young, then we would all be doomed."

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