The other day I was down in the man cave, installing some book shelves. Over the years I collected thousands of books but in the last decade or so I’ve given most of them away as we’ve downsized, to fit our various collections into the little cottage we call home. I kept a few hundred books that meant something, the others I figured I could just get electronically if I ever wanted another look.
“Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life: slow down and let go.” ― Oriah Mountain Dreamer
In the course of doing a final inventory of what to keep and what to let go, I came across a kid’s book that had made the cut up to this point, probably because it was a birthday gift from an old friend and was inscribed on the cover page. The Book was “The Giving Tree,” By Shel Silverstein.
Shel wrote the book around the time I was brought into the Great Wide World but he had a hard time finding anyone that would publish such a sad tale. So it wasn’t put into print until 1964. But it picked up steam pretty quickly and has sold over 10 million copies. Why are folks so smitten with this story, I wonder? Is it the dichotomy between love and boundaries? I know I had trouble at first deciding whether it’s a story of agape love or a cautionary tale about co-dependent relationships?
I didn’t read the book when I was a kid. It was Dr. Seuss and Dick and Jane, for me. I probably got my first taste of Shel’s work in his “Playboy Magazine” cartoons and illustrations, not his kid’s books. I believe it was my twenty-first birthday, when “T“ gifted the book to me. I wondered at the time, why she gave me the book.
It was the lead character in the book that concerned me. The “Little Boy,” was a narcissistic little shit; selfish and self-absorbed. Always begging and whining to the Apple tree to give more of herself, so he could have what he wanted. It was always what he “wanted” until he was an old man, then he just “needed” a place to sit and rest. I kept turning the pages, rooting for the tree to give him the double “Jap” slap on his rosy, little narcissistic cheeks, that he deserved but it never happened.
Was “T” trying to give me a message? Did she think I was a narcissist, that came begging for the best parts of her or was it just a favorite book from her childhood or did she just like the pretty pictures? I never asked her back then, I was still just a dumb kid. A little fearful of the truth, especially if the truth was that she thought I was a selfish little narcissist.
So, I decided to ask her, 40 some odd years later and she said she didn’t really remember why she chose that book. She said I was a bit of a narcissist but not pathologically so and that it probably had more to do with her own insecurity issues than anything I might have done. And that she did indeed enjoy the pictures.
The book has been used as an example by various factions over the years. Christian organizations actually have training material for the book to show how it exemplifies Christ-like Agape Love. Here is the description from ChristianBooks:
Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy. So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein. Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk--and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave. This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return. Recommended especially for ages 10 and up.
The climate crisis crowd hold it up as a parable of how humanity treats nature and why we are headed for disaster:
The Giving Tree, reflects a worldview that nature is here for the taking, and that it’s separate from humans, not deeply interconnected. “This point of view has gotten us to this present point in time when we’re having a climate disaster, which is only getting worse every day.” When people read the book, their responses are split — the story either affirms the idea that nature is a means to an end, reinforcing what people have been taught, or “it repels us with disgust and horror” at the greed of modern society.
I looked around the internet to see if Shel ever suggested what he was hoping to illustrate with “The Giving Tree” but I didn’t find much. Only a single statement. “It’s just a relationship between two people; one gives and the other takes.” This from the guy who also wrote the Grammy Award winning song, “Boy Named Sue,” for Johnny Cash. I think it’s obvious that Silverstein approached his art with a bit of irreverence and a tongue in cheek attitude. And perhaps that’s the reason I still have the book in my collection after all these years.
I’m not implying that the book didn’t deserve to sell 10 million copies or that the key to life can’t be found in a 600 word Children’s tale. In fact, there’s an undeniable truth, hidden in the closing lines of this little book that can change your life when you grasp it. All through the book, when the boy would come, the tree was happy. Even when the boy just came to take and take and take from her; the tree was happy. Always asking the boy if he would be happy when she gave a little more of herself. A few pages from the end though, Shel shares the truth of it: “And the tree was happy…but not really.”
I’m not sure how many relationships I’ve seen this same sad tale play out in over the years but I know it happens at a much higher frequency than it should. Why do folks pretend to be happy when they aren’t? What is it that infects their minds with this need to make someone else happy, at the cost of their own destruction? And this is not a disease that just infects personal relationships. It’s a disease that destroys societies. Somewhere back in our evolutionary history, we zigged when we should have zagged. How long will it take to rectify this dangerous flaw in our psyche?
“The difference between self love and being in love with yourself is that one results in giving and the other in taking.” ― Jeffrey Fry
We’ve been fooled into believing that our most important accomplishment; to love and care for ourselves, is selfish and should be resisted at all cost. That for the greater good, we need to sacrifice ourselves. The truth is; it’s impossible for you to actually love or nurture someone else, until you’ve learned to love or at least know yourself. By ignoring this simple truth we’ve evolved into a neurotic society, ruled by narcississtic psychopaths; on the verge of extinction.
“And the tree was happy…but not really.”
Here’s the book, if you’re interested. Remember to root for the tree!