When a Tree Falls in the Forest
Does the Stillness Make a Sound?
We move above the moving tree...
But reconciled among the stars.
— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
A few weeks ago, I hurt my back during a wrestling drill. I stayed home from work for two days and carefully biked into the office on the third. That same day, I decided to return to training. My coach wasn’t thrilled to see me — and understandably so. He felt I should have taken more time to recover before stepping back onto the mats. But after a massage session that felt more like a spiritual cleansing than physical bodywork, I felt grounded enough to return, though I approached takedowns with extra caution.
I was able to bounce back quickly thanks to my mobility and lifting routine, which had given my body a strong foundation for recovery. Although the injury initially felt severe, my willingness to take immediate action — combined with that physical foundation — made a big difference. The injury itself may have been outside my control, but how I handled the aftermath was entirely within my power.
And as I healed from yet another jiu jitsu injury, I couldn’t help but notice that one thing remained constant: that for the mind and heart, the path towards true healing and growth is a far more complex journey.
In general, I think I’ve developed effective coping mechanisms for dealing with adversity. But I’ve come to realize that healing from mental and emotional stressors can be far harder than recovering from physical ones. When the stressor lives inside your mind, solving it through mental gymnastics becomes its own paradox. It’s a bit like trying to dry yourself off while still standing in the rain.
Lately, the biggest challenge I’ve been reflecting on is how to truly listen to, observe, and nourish my Inner Nature. You might call it “soul-searching,” though it feels less like searching and more like feeling what has always been the Truth all along. Through my work with a sports psychologist, I’ve come to recognize that some of my ambitions, values, and preferences don’t always align with the environment or culture around me. I’ve slowly accepted that I can’t truly know what’s going on in someone else’s head — and they can’t fully understand what’s in mine. Trying to force that kind of understanding often leads to disappointment.
While that realization could feel bleak, it’s actually helped me focus more on the people in my life — including myself — who have the emotional capacity to listen, hold space, and care. As a result, I feel less drained by the constant need to explain and justify other people’s behavior, their responses to mine, and my reactions to theirs. That exhausting carousel of emotional interpretation has mostly quieted into a manageable hum. It used to feel like my thoughts were strapped to the Lead Horse of the Emotional Apocalypse, galloping to the tune of a nauseatingly repetitive organ.
I’ve also recognized that in my craving for connection, I often use vulnerability and honesty in an attempt to invite others to meet me in kind. If I can signal that I’m comfortable sharing something intimate, I hope they’ll feel safe doing the same. But the truth is, not everyone will — or even wants to. As painful as that can be, setting clearer boundaries often leads to better relationships — ones that aren’t built on forcing something that isn’t naturally there.
Ironically, with the increased focus on “listening” to myself, I’ve found that my Inner Nature is usually quiet — not absent, just content, like a cat purring quietly to itself in a sunlit room. When I’m being authentic — not performing or preemptively managing others’ reactions — everyone, including my Inner Nature, seems to breathe easier. My Inner Nature: happy to sit in stillness, happy to enjoy the immaculate vibes.
I am happy (and relieved) to see from my friends how they accept my authentic self. Between the words of our conversations is a deeper, silent exchange — that of one Inner Nature seeing another. It might not seem like I’m opening up more — reminder again that it’s impossible to see what is going on in someone’s head — but I am. My connection to them more than outweighs the handful of negative responses that I’ve received from being more courageous in taking up space and not being “small.” I’ve come to realize that no matter the environment, my authentic self will shine through. It’s better to grow the positivity it brings than to keep trying to shrink the negativity. Great power comes from such integrity.
But alongside what I’ve gained, I grieve what I’ve lost — especially the relationships that have changed, or inevitably will.
Grief is a feeling that isn’t only about physical death. Grief, too, is about the dying of expectations in slow and subtle ways, invisible to ourselves until the tragic ending can no longer be denied. Grief is about when we cannot reach back into the past to bring something into our present or future, no matter how much we try.
I’m reminded of a passage from John Green’s book Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, in which he reframes physical death:
On my first day of training, she told me, "Death is natural. Children dying is natural. None of us actually wants to live in a natural world." Treating disease, whether through herbs or magic or drugs, is unnatural. No other animals do it, at least not with anything approaching our sophistication. Hospitals are unnatural. As are novels, and saxophones. None of us actually wants to live in a natural world.
And so, I’ve come to see that the end of what we know is natural. We all carry with us unresolved endings — hopes that a role model will become a guide, a decision will transform us, or an achievement will make us whole. What’s unnatural is the struggle to make things mean what they don’t — to force a mentor to be more than they are, or a gold medal to fill a void it never could.
Sometimes we try to make everything succeed, but eventually, we must set down the watering can and accept that the seedling will never grow.
What is natural is death. What is natural is acceptance.
And even while the dust still moves, there rises a hidden laughter.