One of the things that I and many other people find beautiful and interesting to look at is a gnarled old tree. You see a tree that's over a hundred years old and it has the rough bark that's been aged and sun and rain and wind and cold and hot.
If it's had some damage it has holes where branches used to be, sometimes even splits where the trunk was torn asunder and yet the tree kept living. The windblown gnarly trees on the coasts are also so fascinating.
Continuous wind coming in off the ocean or off the edge of a mountain causes all the branches to go in the opposite direction because they can't grow into the wind very well. When you find one on a rock jutting out of a river and it defiantly is holding on and growing they're just so beautiful and you wonder what the story is and how long they've been there living it.
But when people see the branch dangling from a few more strands of cellulose or whatever the substance is that makes up their sinewy branch material. Most people just think it's time to cut that off.
Some people just want to rub paint or some sort of sealant on it so the tree maybe will continue but they think it's ugly because it's white or black paint and it's not beautiful to look at when it's been damaged.
If it's gnarled by the twisting winds the trunk is looked at as a thing that is struggling and maybe shouldn't even be there. Picked the wrong place to live, didn't you? Very few people are interested in the process of becoming gnarly, aged with weather and experience.
Fascinating, isn't it?
