do something even if it's wrong

 When you're in motion, it always seems like you're doing something. Movement is certainly something, but I'm referring to the idea that in order to achieve something we must do something. I suppose another word for it could be productivity. In a modern capitalist society, productivity is king and when we're not being productive, it's almost like we're being anti-social.

Another thing to consider with this is how productive we're being. There's a really ugly tree in the yard and the reason it's so hideous is because of neglect and what looks like bad luck. Imagine if the charlie brown christmas tree were cared for and given a chance to grow healthy for about five years. The dead branches were kept trimmed and someone cared about it. Then it fell back into disrepair for a decade or more. Now this damn tree is back on its bad luck streak and looks like a sack of turds with some gnarled branches and an angry outlook on life. How should I approach this problem?

I can try and bring it back to life. The poor thing has spent more years without someone to care for it than it has with someone, and that someone is me and maybe he's gonna be resentful because I left. Ornery and disagreeable, what if he just needs put down? By that, I mean cut down and burned to light his own funeral pyre. 

As a youth, I remember playing release in this field but it was so much bigger. Where this tree stands now used to be a row of much larger pines that would dwarf this sickly abomination and he's probably twenty years old and no small stick in the ground. Maybe I just remember them being bigger as well, but I know they were better looking. The thing that made them objectively more handsome was actually the fireflies.

Fireflies don't care for a lone disaster in the middle of a field. They live in the woods, and when there was a line of trees where this loner now stands, they crossed the upper half of the field to get to the trees. In the middle of summer, on warm summer nights we'd run through a line of well maintained trees into a field of lights. Beyond that, on nights where it was just right, you could see the forest in almost total darkness. There were so many fireflies firing off everywhere they illuminated everything enough to take your breath away. 

You never realize how much life there is in the world until you see the pieces of the whole. At night, here when I was young, there were maybe millions of tiny pieces lighting up the whole of the forest. I can see them now when I go out at night, but it's not the same because of this damn tree. Rather, the lack of his ancestors. He was planted there after the others were cut down and it's a perfect example of doing something that was wrong.

I understand why they were cut down. Well, at least two or three of them. They were getting old and like all the elderly, they became a fall risk. Massive trees falling on things is dangerous, but if they fall in the middle of a field it doesn't make any difference. I think the saying is "god made dirt and dirt don't hurt" or something like that, but the point is that you can't hurt dirt, or grass. However, getting rid of those trees really hurt the view. The only person that might find a field of grass visually appealing is a cow or a horse or something and they're not people no matter what the pigs might tell you.

Something was done for decent reasons, and yet here I am twenty or so years later debating on how to fix the initial "fix". Sometimes our efforts at productivity or at simply improving our world, are fucking wrong. Humans make huge mistakes constantly. There's a bunch of things here that need fixed, but what if I'm wrong in another quarter century? I'm not, of course. I can't remember a time I was wrong, so I'm obviously correct. 

When we make mistakes, are they? This type of mistake was counterproductive and a waste of time, but maybe someone learned something from it? After all, it's good to salvage something from a massive train wreck like this ugly tree. Sometimes those things that give us great frustrations, like this massive mistake made by someone else, aren't that bad because someone learned something. I'm certainly discussing this frustration now even though I'm still struggling to find what exactly I've learned. I suppose at the very least I'll get some exercise in when I plant some more trees where they used to be so long ago. I also know I'll learn some pine maintenance as I nurse this ugly bastard back to vivaciousness.

Doing things makes us feel good and productive but sometimes it's best to not do things. If the thing we do is wrong, should we do it or do nothing? If we're trying to be productive, then we should not do the wrong thing. However, if we're concerned about the appearance of productivity or the feeling of doing something constructive, then we should do the wrong thing. This is a little silly to think about this way but it's true that few people stop and think about the overall productivity of their actions. Or, rather, whether the use of their time is being spent appropriately. 

How can you know what is the "right" path for right now? If I continue on the path I'm on, doing the things I'm doing, will I have to undo these things later? I don't want to cut down any trees that will eventually need replanted. Likewise, I don't want to plant any trees that will eventually need cut down, at least in this scenario using the trees example. This idea can be as simple as "Should I email this person or just call them?" at work, and you call them and take the chance they'll just give you a quick answer but then you get stuck on the phone for half an hour dealing with other bullshit you wouldn't have had to deal with in an email. Sometimes you can't know, other times you can stop and look at the view and think to yourself "grass is a pain in the ass to cut" and just leave the damn trees and the fireflies.

What about objective mistakes in a less subjective example, like a wrong judgment call on something important? Those instance where you should have known better but for whatever reason you made the mistake anyways are always harder to deal with. Maybe you were tired, maybe you were having a bad day, or maybe you were channeling your inner chaos demon and you decided to choose poorly on purpose. The end result is a bona fide fuck up and you're left holding the bag like some fool. 

The only thing these all have in common is their finality. You only have the cards you were dealt and now you have to play them. This moment and the future moments we have are the only ones we can worry about. So when you come across a mistake, by yourself or someone else, you shouldn't worry yourself over who is to blame, but rather how to fix it. Maybe you get that nice call when you're working some IT job and they lost their whole document but they actually just selected all and cut so you tell them to paste and they call you a wizard. Maybe you inherit someone else's massive cluster fuck that'll take years to unravel.

It could be big or small, but we all eventually deal with the problems and mistakes of others. These are good opportunities to learn from others' mistakes and also to cultivate patience in ourselves. We shouldn't get frustrated over those things in life that try and frustrate us because that's what they want. Instead, we should try and remain calm and laugh at the universe's foolish attempts to upset you.