The education of little tree

I'm sitting under this tree right now, and felt that I had to share its magnificence with the world. I've been trying to figure out a good way to observe Newton's laws through simple machines and found myself wishing that this was an apple tree and it might give me some inspiration. 

I decided that this tree is probably not a physicist but instead I feel like it is more of a philosopher tree. The problem with this is that unlike the physicist trees which can drop apples on people to teach them, this tree cannot communicate it's wisdom. Which is too bad, because this tree has seen a lot of change in it's life time. I am sure that this tree has seen students from 100+ years ago probably even seeing some of it's students march off to fight in the civil war. It has observed the riots here when the first african american student enrolled at the university and I am sure that it will see much more change in it's future. If only it could share it's wisdom with the world! This tree is the ultimate listener, it soaks up the wisdom of the ages but will never share it with anyone. It is a reality that transfers into our own lives. Those who know the most are those who listen, those who give everyone a chance to share their beliefs without a need to add their own opinion to the matter. They just listen unbiased to everyone never critiquing just learning ( this was indirectly a quote from a starbucks cup) All this wisdom is wasted however, if it is never shared with anyone else. 

So what am I saying? Take the time to listen. Listen to friends and foes alike, listen to the birds in the morning and the crickets in the evening, listen to the breeze as it blows through the trees, listen to your own footsteps or the crank of your bicycle.

I leave you with this story; two men are walking down the streets of San Francisco. One man is from the country and the other from the city. The country boy remarks that the birds sound beautiful and the other man responds "what birds?" The country boy says that we listen to that which is important to us to demonstrate his point he drops some change on the ground and multiple people stop and look for the falling change.

My challenge to the world; stop and listen

Godspeed