The Giving Tree

In response to Mr. O'Connor's blog post on the American Studies blog, I have found messages in a book read to me when I was younger, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. These messages are secret because many children read the book for entertainment, and do not think deeply about it. The plot of the book is a relationship between a boy and a tree that can talk. The tree gives the boy everything he needs, acting like a parent. The boy as a child takes apples from the tree to eat, and branches for shade and to swing on. As the boy grows older he needs more and more, and eventually cuts the tree down to build a home. Then as an old man he comes back to the stump of the tree. He now wants a place to rest, and the tree tells him to sit on its stump, he does and the tree is happy.

After rereading it the main lesson I got out of the book is to be selfless: the more you give the happier you are. The tree keeps on giving and only becomes happier each time. Even when the tree has nothing left, it is still happy. This is trying to teach children to help others and to not worry about having things and they will be happy. Personally, I think this is a good message to be teaching our children. With all the advertisements and other media telling them to buy as much as they can, this is a way to fight it.

The book also shows the supposedly average life of an American. The boy is careless as a child, and is given what he wants. Then as an adult he becomes more stressed and needs to take care of bigger things. Then as an old man he is tired and just wants to sit down.
Although this is a picture book targeted mainly at children, it has many deeper messages. When I was learning to read, I was also learning how to live my life.

Are you in danger?

An issue for years has been the safety of meat. In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote about the nauseating Chicago Slaughter houses and the meat packing industry. Then the government tried to fix the problem and start inspecting meat. The problem is not over though, as stated in this article along with many others. Diseases from meat still infect people each year. This has never bothered me, but it troubles some people to the extent of being vegetarians.

One company in particular, Beef Products Inc., has been producing meat that is contaminated. Their processed beef is used in McDonald's and Burger King's hambugers, along with 5.5 millions pounds a year in school lunches. In August two 27,000 pound batches were found to be contaminated before being released to the public. Imagine if they hadnt been caught.

So then, are you scared of what can be in your meat?

Can you train your brain?

I recently read an article in the New York Times titled: how to train the aging brain. I always throught that I got easily distracted from tasks and became forgetful of the details of the books we read in class, but studies show that with our aging population those in their 40s to 60s are becoming increasingly more forgetful. Aging brains fall into what is called "the default mode", during which the mind wanders off and begins daydreaming, causing middle aged people to forget that they were cooking pizza and get distracted, until the pizza is smoking and the fire alarm goes off.

The question that this article essentially brings up is: can you teach an old dog new tricks? The article then argues that yes, brains continue to develop through and after middle age. Personally, this makes sense to me. I have often heard of the "old wise man" and this argument confirms that he exists. While brains grow older they may lose small details, but they gain a greater depth of complexity and have an easier time seeing the big picture. After all, numbers and dates we learn in school might end up not mattering, but the bigger ideas do.