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On the TV show Andor, which I discussed last week, a character used the phrase “The axe forgets, the tree remembers.” He was using it to make the point that people who hurt others go about their business after causing pain, and the people who got hurt never forget that.
It’s a pretty profound statement. The idea of an axe chopping away at things over and over again, then moving onto the next thing to cut is a strong visual. And so are the trees that absorb those blows that change them forever. It’s a very visceral, in-your-face way to think about the impact we have in this world.
I tried to find where it originally came from, and it’s apparently an old African proverb, and also the title of a poetry book. So I’m not sure who first said those words, but they’ve stood the test of time and are now appearing in Star Wars spinoff shows.
That saying is a perfect one to unpack for a sober person, because I think a huge part of my problem in active addiction was either causing pain and trying to live with it, or hanging onto it and then trying to numb it. And I think in sobriety, I still spend an inordinate amount of time either saying something hurtful that I regret, or stewing over something that someone else said or did.
So which one is better to aim for, the axe or the tree?
Well, I don’t want to be the axe. In fact, I can’t be the axe. Sometimes I start thinking about how I want to be someone who doesn’t take s**t from anybody, who gets in your face if there is a problem, somebody who is relentless and intimidating and speaks his mind. Then I realize, I can be some of those things without causing pain. I can be persistent about getting charged twice for a refrigerator repair without causing pain. I can stand my ground without being a total a*****e.
So… I do not want to be an axe. Maybe a butter knife. But not an axe.
So that leaves the tree, right? Well, when I thought about it, I’m not sure the tree is a healthy place to land for me in sobriety, either. The tree represents something that got hurt and survived but will never forget it. It’s important to note here that I am thinking more of the day-to-day pain that people tend to cause, not horrific, traumatic pain that is impossible to easily escape. If someone purposely burns your house down, by all means, you’re welcome to hang onto that for a bit and also not invite them over for S’mores.
But most of the pain I encounter these days is not earth-shattering hurtful things. Those are the things that are small enough that I tend to not do any work to process them, but big enough that I tend to collect them and form a nice pile that is extremely problematic. I don’t want to be the tree, either, most of the time.
What I do want to be is a very healthy tree. I want to be a tree that an axe might chop into a bit, but I absorb the pain, process it and move on. Maybe I even regrow some of the bark that got hacked away. That might mean I put up a boundary where I don’t let that axe come over by my tree stump. But if I am hanging onto everything that happened that caused pain, it’s a disaster.
So I am going to do my damndest to be the healthiest tree in the forest!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A woman approached her sponsor and asked, “What do I do when I finish with the Steps?”
And the sponsor said, “Lie very, very still—because you’re dead.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, Jan. 2000, “Ham on Wry,” by Jim G.)
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