Reflections on the Tree of Life
Places and events create memories. As memories are recounted and recorded, they may become a part of history. A half-remembered history becomes an anecdote, and most tales worth telling tend to grow and change over time. Thus are born legends and myths. Like all living things, legends and myths grow and change. They age, fade over time as people recounting the old stories are no more. One age gives way to the next, myths and legends fade from commonplace to obscure, until at last they pass from the collective consciousness and leave only dusty echoes in the branching corridors of time.
Legends say that at the center of a place once known as the Garden of Eden two trees grew together: the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. As the story goes, gaining immortality is as simple a matter as walking up to the legendary Tree of Life, picking a little fresh produce, and eating a (presumably nice) helping of fruit. Granted, the path to that garden has long been unused and forgotten. The garden itself was hidden away long ago by a disappointed god, back before said deity became jealous and wrathful. Story tells of at least one angel standing guard over the garden, the tree, or both with a fiery sword. And there may or may not still be a certain "helpful" serpent residing in the garden, offering advice....
But if you found the way, how hard could it be to find one of two trees in a garden? Never mind that by many accounts, much of the trouble in the world today can be attributed to picking and eating the wrong Fruit, by choosing to Know instead of choosing to Live. Then there's the whole unripe versus ripe verses overly ripe issue. Most fruit is best eaten when ripe. The taste and texture would probably be better when ripe. And the right degree of ripeness is probably healthier in a lot of respects: legendary things have a tendency of creating legendary problems if everything isn't just so. Though if nobody has seen the Tree or the Fruit of the Tree for countless generations, how could anyone be certain the Fruit was ripe and ready to be eaten? The angelic guardian might know, but probably would not say. If the ever-so-helpful serpent were still there, assuming he hadn't gotten out of the advice business after being cursed by a god, he might be happy to drop a hint or two, but consider the source and what happened as a result of the last advice offered by the serpent, if the stories are true.
Still, what's the worst that could happen? Okay, eating Fruit of Life before it ripens might kill you on the spot. Or it might cut life short in proportion to the degree of ripeness. It might have a sour taste and no effect at all if unripe, might permanently sour you, or might cause you to live forever in the body of a child. If overripe, it might have no effect. It might kill you on the spot. It might cause you to live forever in an aching worn-out body as an embittered grumpy oldster.
Assuming all else goes according to plan, there is still the matter of the human heart. Something in the psyche seems predisposed toward companionship and establishing long-term relationships. For those people living lives that span a handful or two of decades and three or four generations, surrounded by others with a similar life expectancy, it is not uncommon to build life-long friendships, or even ties that can span generations. As long as the lifespan of a person remains more or less the same as that of the friends and family with which each surrounds him or herself, each remembers and identifies with similar events, experiences a similar amount of loss as friends and family eventually succumb to the effects of mortality.
But is no easy thing to live through the ages. Watching generation after generation dash from cradle to grave, knowing that each will slip away just as the bonds of friendship have matured into the rich relationships that speak volumes without saying a word, feeling the hollow ache that comes from realizing that nobody else remembers or knows the people you've know, the places you once called home.