My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. 'Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?' they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, 'Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.' And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, 'Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.' So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A story about trees shows that straightness gets cut down while crookedness survives.
- In plain terms
- Straight trees get used for wood; crooked trees live on.
- What can you take from it?
- Being different protects you from being exploited by the system.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is being normal dangerous?
- Why do systems favor uniformity?
Another view
It simplifies complex social dynamics into a fable.
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