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The insights in your opening and overall theme remind me of The Hidden Life of Trees. Very thoughtful post grounded in a richly evoked metaphor--I wonder where a metaphor based on the animal kingdom rather than the plant kingdom would lead?

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Apr 25, 2023Liked by Haley Brengartner

The first paragraph was just wow! I could visualise every detail as I read it

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Really enjoyed this piece, Haley. Excellent hook (very visual) and I just like the overall message. Reminded me a lot about the illusion of free will and the futility of ‘trying harder’.

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This was amazing Haley. The metaphor of the trees is beautiful, and it was made much more so because of your insane ability with visual imagery. I was hooked from the beginning purely because of how alive and descriptive the piece was.

The message here is really important and, as you mentioned, really hard to integrate. It seems to take a lot of practice - I'm certainly not there yet. I think your reframe of the question is smart and helps cut away the potential semantic debates, pointing us more in the direction of what we can do with this information (akin to Derek Sivers' 'Useful not true' concept).

Great stuff.

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What a beautiful essay, Haley. Your descriptions were rich and generous. And I love the metaphor, especially trees in community and the importance of resources and access. My goodness what brilliant and evocative imagery you channels.

I’m sitting with these empathy-expanding questions, too. I think they can offer us grace and empathy for ourselves and others. Sometimes it’s easy to be hard on others because we’re so used to being hard on ourselves.

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