Digital Trees

Trees have many functions:

• they provide shade,
• they purify air,
• they store carbon,
• they grow fruit,
• and they’re aesthetically pleasing.

What’s intriguing to me about trees is their return on investment (ROI).

It takes years, even decades, to grow a tree to the point where you feel like you get to reap its benefits.

Because of this, many trees end up being cultivated more for others than for ourselves. They can be a living embodiment of giving over extracting.

With the web going the way it is — what with AI and its extractive penchant, poisoning the well from which it sprang — it makes me wonder: what are the “trees” of the web? Undoubtedly many (metaphorical) trees on the web were planted by others but we enjoy their fruits.

For me personally, one example is the free and open blogs of folks whose advice and education have gifted me the know-how necessary to be employed as an interdisciplinary website maker.

Which makes me wonder: what trees am I planting? Trees I will gain little from in my lifetime, but others may revel in their fruits far into the future?

Pay it forward. Plant a digital tree.