One summer when I was about 12 years old, my friend and I finally realized that the big, old maple tree across the road from his house would be perfect for a tree house. He lived on an old, dirt road, in an old, farm house, and his driveway was nearly a kilometer long, or at least it seemed so when we were kids. That was typical of many houses in the Canadian countryside at the time, especially if the house was at the end of a big corn field.
We were just a couple kids with nothing to do, and had no idea how to make a tree house, but his dad said we could use some of the wood and 2×4s that were stacked up inside the door of his barn. So we grabbed a couple hammers and saws, and as much wood as we could carry while riding down his driveway on our bikes.
After about four hours of work, all we really managed to accomplish was to cut some of the 2×4s into workable pieces, nail the steps into the base of the tree so that we could climb to the first branch, and nail a few more boards into the lowest branches to get started on the floor. It didn’t have us feeling like we were destined to become construction workers, much less architects. But as the sun started to go down, we felt like we’d gotten off to a good start, and looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.
I wish this story had a happy ending, with the finished product looking at least something like the picture above, and kids playing in it for centuries to come. But it doesn’t. We had left all our wood and tools under the tree, and went back there first thing the next morning to pick up where we’d left off. But about half an hour after we got there and started working again, some nasty, middle-aged woman driving by stopped and got out of her car, walked over, and said, “Excuse me! Just what on earth do you boys think you’re doing?”
“We’re making a treehouse,” we said. “I don’t think so,” the woman replied. “That tree does not belong to you. My father owns that field, and that tree right there is one of the oldest in Ontario. You boys stop what you’re doing right now, and take down everything you’ve done, or I’m going to call the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police), and report you for vandalism.” Vandalism. I only knew what that word meant because we had just learned it the year before in school.
My friend and I looked at each other and asked a question that many native and indigenous people during the 18th century in Canada must have asked themselves when they were told they could no longer fish, farm, or hunt here; “How can you own a tree?” Especially one that is ‘one of the oldest in Ontario.’ (I don’t know if that was actually true, or if it was just a typical lie that people tell to try to guilt trip you out of doing something. But she couldn’t have been too far off. It was a pretty awesome tree.) Can you own ground? Can you own part of the sky?
Needless to say, concerned she was actually telling the truth, and pretty worried she was really going to call the cops, we spent about half an hour pulling out all the boards we’d nailed into the tree, and rode back to his house to exchange our tools for a couple baseball gloves and a bat. So much for the amazing treehouse we were about to make.
But why do kids want to build a treehouse, anyway? Simple. Cuz it’s fun. That’s it. Ya, maybe we are imagining the idea of sitting up there on a rainy day, reading comic books, playing cards, or teaching our dog to climb up and hang out. (I doubt whether any dogs can scale straight up a rope, but brave dogs can learn to climb ladders.) Older boys might even be fantasizing about trying to bring girls back there after school and turning the thing into a kickass teenage bachelor pad.
But that stuff is all secondary. The primary motivation for building a treehouse is for the enjoyment of the activity itself. It’s the same reason a 5-year old sits down with a piece of paper and some crayons and starts drawing a picture. They’re not doing it ‘so that’ one day they can become a famous artist, and sell their drawings and paintings for millions. Only adults entertain silly thoughts like that. There is no ‘so that……’ behind their notion to draw a nice picture.
The treehouse doesn’t begin with the kids thinking, ‘we’ll build a badass treehouse, and then when my dad sells the property to a family with three kids, it will be worth more.’ No one has ever built a treehouse for that reason. Unless the kid is a 45-year old man who is trying to put a few more bucks in his pocket when he sells the house, probably because he’s about to get divorced.
Vincent van Gogh was only reported to have sold one painting in his life. He didn’t paint ‘so that……’ The creation of something, be it a work of art, a piece of music, an automobile, or a treehouse, has to be done for the enjoyment of it. This is the optimum way to be fully present in what one is doing. When the activity is nothing but a means to an end, the work suffers. Concentration starts to wane, and the activity itself is not as fulfilling. The work is compromised, and the outcome is not quite what one is capable of.
What is something you’d like to build, do, or create? Not so that you can sell it (at least not initially), not to show off to your friends, not to post on social media and count the ‘likes.’ What is something you’d like to spend some time working on, purely for the enjoyment of it? What could you develop, produce, or maybe even invent that would leave you standing there staring at it, leaning back on one leg, thinking, ‘Cool. I made that?’