Recently, someone left a comment calling my “Mutant Creativity” series nerdy. Every time I see comments like that, I still find myself deflated, but I recall the story of the useless tree and manage to scrape together a little courage.
The story of the useless tree carries a simple lesson: trees useful to others were cut down early, while trees that seemed useless were able to grow into giants.
The person who commented on my content looked at the tree I had grown, pointed out exactly the part they saw as useless, and walked away.
But I can’t cut off the branches of thought I’m meant to grow just to match what that one person said. Because the self I love and want to nurture would be carelessly cut down along with them.
That hurt so much that I wandered for a while and only came back to this space after a year. At the time, I told myself it was a preparation period, but I think the real reason it dragged on this long was that I was afraid of those kinds of stares. Coming back, I promised myself: “At least within this space, let’s be honest. Let’s make what I actually wanted to make.”
And yet, the trees I’ve grown on my feed might still look useless to others. I shake so much that I wonder, “Am I growing an aspen?” Once that thought passes, I think it over again: “It’s fine. Even the most useless-looking tree in the world is fine.” I make the promise again. Still, I want the tree I’ve grown, at the very least, to matter most to me.
Only then can I climb to its crown and interpret the world through my own perspective. Even if others call it “useless,” I won’t carelessly cut off the branches of my own thinking. It only looks useless for now. I’ll trust in what it can become and gather a little more courage to keep growing it.
And if I can, I want to create content and a culture that encourages people who grow their own useless trees — not because I’m a good person, but to work through my own complex.
Whenever I crouch under the blazing sun tending my useless tree, people around me always toss out a careless remark as they pass by. It’s a little irritating, but it kept balling up and piling inside me until it became one huge knot. I want to use that foul-smelling lump built up in my heart as fertilizer for growing the useless tree. And holding up this small tree I’ve raised, I want to say:
(As Carla, Eren’s mother in Attack on Titan, once looked at baby Eren in her arms and told him this child didn’t have to be great — asking, “Does he have to be special? Does he have to be recognized by others?”)
Ugh. Even after scribbling this down in parentheses, I still feel stifled. The knot hasn’t loosened much. The people who threw that knot at me might be upset, but let me drop the parentheses and say it again:
“Even if the tree I’m growing looks useless to you, I’m still okay with that. Just because something looks useless, I don’t want to carelessly cut off a branch that’s meaningful to me.”