I'm almost certain that most of you have had thoughts or questions about your life at some point. I want to bring a new perspective (from my perspective) to these questions that has been asked through the history of philosophy, with a tree. Let me first summarize my thoughts and then explain it. This will be more of an analysing post rather than a questioning one.
"I guess it happens like this: You come to this world and live a tree from the root to a leaf. You guide your life through branches and the earlier ones makes the biggest impact on the ending. Even though you make contact with other branches along the way, you can't go much further away from the point that you are directed yourself to. It is up to you to choose a lifeless or a vibrant branch. When you reach a leaf in the end, a fall comes in and you go back to ground with serenity or with a storm. You can't choose the tree you will walk through, you can chose how to walk it through. If you look back in the end, you realize that the point you have ended up is mostly the result of the choices you have made. And that paling might be out of ruefulness."
Of course i won't try to explain you what is a tree now :) But have you ever looked at them from this perspective? It is growing from the root and branching out and it seems like it is the blueprint of the schema of your life or in other words, your destiny. All the branches are connected to the same root, which means all of the possibilities or choices you can chose start when you are born. Also as you would know, there aren't any branches usually in the beginning and you have to proceed for a while. Depending on how your life goes on, you may have crossroads in your childhood or teenager years. Every branch represents a choice and usually, there is no going back.
What i mean by going back here is what i mean: For example, you get into a college and then choose a major. Later then you decide that is not what you want and change it. Or you get a job and get bored of it and change it. You at least spend some time or energy before you can make these changes and you can't take it back. All of your decisions have price that you pay either willingly or unwillingly. This price can be a tangible meta like time, money, energy or an intangible one like an impact you create in your relationships.
Naturally your decisions in early stages of your life makes the biggest difference in the rest of your life. Maybe most of you have decided or forced to decide your career today in childhood. Maybe you have had an accident and broken your arm and unable to be an athlete or something. Maybe you are thinking that you wouldn't have to visit dentist frequently if you have had brushed your teeth back then. Usually the earlier the decision, the more impact it will have. Furthermore, we have all been given a limited time to live on earth but we don't know for how long. That is why a decision you make in your 30s can be an early decision and can effect your life at 90s.
You can also change your decisions or the path you are walking in this journey, if you have the power and will. Some of the branches of the tree comes into contact with others. Like the college major or career change i have mentioned above. Think how much of a blessing is this. Think about not being able to go back from any decision in your life, for the rest of your life. As you would guess, these path changes can effect you journey only too much. For example, having college education or dropping out of school in high school is vastly different. Or having a criminal history in your records would drastically change your life. In these kinds of situations, no matter how much you try, would you be able to be a well known scientist with a clean slate? Even the power of our freedom is limited in this life.
Yes, one of the most important aspects of this journey is the choices you make. When something happens in your life and forces you to decide, you basically selecting a branch. You can also see the up ahead of the road at some level. Sometimes you get only one choice but mostly, our lives are not a path with predetermined decisions that we just have to walk through. Yes some people really have no choice or power to choose or very limited options. This shows that we must be grateful to not have a tree like theirs.
If you have free will, this also makes you responsible for your decisions. You are responsible for the way you decide when you choose a company or a career. If nobody has forced you to make a decision, you also have to bear the consequences. How much did you know about the branch you chose or how much did you analysed it? What did you depend on while deciding? These choices accumulate over time and create a bigger picture. You were unaware when you were deciding but you could have looked back. You could have asked "what have i done until today" to yourself. We are getting close to the end of the branches, a fall.
We start in spring and end up in autumn while going into winter and i feel like this resembles losing our vitality by getting closer to death. You have guided your life somehow and brought it up to a certain point. This won't go on like this forever and at some unknown point, our concept of life will end. Or maybe you will be unable to redirect your life with your choices. We will reach to laves and most probably be paled by then. Of course you might have different views on this matter depending on your theological beliefs. But for the people who believe an afterlife and some sort of interrogation, no matter at what age of stage, death and falling like a leaf back to ground works the same. All of us are returning back to ground one way or another. Be it a strong wind or with tranquility. Also, most of us are paling at the end too. Either because of the regret of our decisions along the way and the point we have ended up or because of being responsible of those decisions.
Because nobody told you what kind of tree you will walk through and you didn't know what kind of life is waiting for you. But still, you were probably more or less in charge at every branching. You see your role in the big picture when you look back whether at the end or somewhere in the middle. At the end of your journey, you are crushed under the heaviness of the path you have taken and either question yourself or be questioned about how did you travel through the whole tree, how did you lived.
If this analogy makes sense to you, ask yourself this. Where are you inside your tree and how did you come here? Where could you be headed at this point? I know you can't live wondering what would happen if i have chosen the other branch. You can live by jumping from one to another every time you come across with another one. I know there were probably some decisions you were forced to make and other choices were vanished. But you probably will probably never be able to see the big picture as a whole. That's why, what matters is walking peacefully and paling with serenity, rather than being able to walk the tree through the end or being able to explain yourself. See you at the next post :)
Ayşenur
Numan, Eline sağlık. Güzel bir irdeleme olmuş. Ağaç ve dalları hayat ve iradi seçimlerimize güzel bir metafor olmuş. Yorumlarım vaaaar: 1. Her bir dal bir kararı temsil ediyor ve çoğunlukla da geri dönüşü olmuyor. Ama telafisi oluyordur belki. Boşa gitmeyip, Cihat’ın da dediği gibi kollektif potansiyelime hizmet edip kapasitemi artırıyordur belki de bir şekilde. 2. Böyle bir durumda ne kadar uğraşırsanız uğraşın sicili temiz ve tanınmış bir bilimadamı olabilir miydiniz?Tanınmış bir bilim adamı olmak için, sicilimin temiz olmasına gerek var mı emin değilim? Hapse atılmış, idamla yargılanmış ama yine de içindeki fikri dile getirmekten alıkoyulamayan bilim adamları yok mu? 3. Seçtiğiniz dalı ne kadar iyi tanıdınız veya incelediniz? Neye göre tercih yaptınız? : Seçtiğim dalı değilse de kendimi ortalamanın üzerinde iyi tanıyabilmişsem, kendi potansiyelim sınırlarında (ne ondan az - ne ondan fazla) tercih yapabileceğim demektir. Bu da az da olsa kendi irademle dal seçmeme; eğer bir gün o dal bir yerinden kırılırsa başka bir dala atlamak suretiyle yoluma devam etmeme kolaylık sağlar. Dolayısıyla, dala göre değil kendime göre seçim yaptıysam doğru yoldayım demektir. İlerde potansiyelime bir update gelirse, o zaman önceden göze alamadığım başka dallara da sıçrayabilirim belki :);
Numan Karaaslan
Teşekkürler yorum için :) Aslında yazıda belirttiğim ifadeler biraz keskin olmuş olabilir. 1. örneğinde dediğin gibi insan kararlarının sonucunda farklı bir şekilde gelişip eksiğini kapatabiliyor. 2. durum da insan başına gelen bir sürü olaydan sonra da bambaşka bir noktada bitirebilir hayatını. 3. bakış açısı için de hangi seçimi yaptığım için doğru veya yanlış oldu sorusunu kişi en iyi kendisi bilebilir. Burada belirtmek istediğim her adımımızda az yada çok etkimizin olduğu ve bunun bir mekanizma işlettiği idi. Bu kaçınılmaz gibi geldiği için durup dinlenemediğin ve sana bir şekilde sorumluluk yükleyen bir ağaç yolculuğuna benzettim.