A colleague of mine, a naturalist, was telling me about this phenomenon she called random branch falling syndrome. When I first heard this I thought it sounded like another Big Pharma ad  :)–but I digress. I later learned it is more commonly called sudden branch drop syndrome. Nevertheless, this is something we’ve all seen, particularly after a rainstorm. Or sometimes on hot summer days. Large branches of trees fall into the street into our yards or into the parks. Like everything, this is an area of research that has developed many theories that are inconclusive. One factor is that every tree is different.  It remains somewhat of a mystery. If we think about it, the rain, the wind, the weight of the branches, the configuration of the tree, endures some change, imbalance, or shift in the load bearing capacity of the branch and it breaks off and falls. Researchers tell us that trees need to release moisture, and unlike humans, they can’t sweat it out. That means that the evaporation of water within the tree, occurs through the leaves and, in extreme circumstances, through branch drops. The water the tree absorbs, the drought conditions, and the ambient temperature can lead to dropping branches at later times. Basically, we really don’t know.

My friend, the naturalist who runs the maintenance of many parks and recreation facilities said that the maintenance superintendents often misinterpret this phenomenon. So indoctrinated in risk management and liability concerns they want to minimize the endangerment of citizens, park goers, and public and private structures. They start to worry about branches falling everywhere. That this is a precursor to some potential epidemic of falling branches. They prepare to trim the trees—all of them. Otherwise, there could be dire consequences. My friend has meetings with these teams to remind them that these are random occurrences. That these phenomena are most likely unique to an individual tree. That we cannot jump to any conclusions about all trees or any species of tree. We must understand them one at a time. That overreacting, by trimming all the trees, will have unintended consequences to the habitat. It would change the balance of the ecosystem of bugs and birds. It could impact the community environs and the sustainability of the habitat. She has seen when over-pruning is pursued aggressively that new kinds of birds which prefer trees with fewer leaves and branches move into the community. These tend to be crows and ravens. We all know how much we love crows and ravens.

The point is that the branches of our lives fall randomly and suddenly. Sometimes just twigs fall, and sometimes massive trunks are uprooted unexpectedly for ambiguous and enigmatic reasons. We try to make sense out of it. We try to see it as part of the master plan or something Divine or some pattern we want to see.  Perhaps we’re unlucky.  Or it symbolizes or foreshadows something ominous or auspicious.  It is really common for us to think of and see sudden and random things and try to put them into a theory to understand the motivation, origin, and intention of this randomness.

I’ve always loved Leonard Mlodinow’s book, Drunkard’s walk. He describes the randomness of molecules that their behavior can’t be predicted.  

The random motion of molecules ….is a metaphor for our own paths through life, and so it is worthwhile to take a little time to give Einstein’s work a closer look. According to the atomic picture, the fundamental motion of molecules is chaotic. The molecules fly first this way, then that, moving in a straight line only until deflected by an encounter with one of their sisters. 

That may not make sense, but it is real.

The studies of people’s visualization of numbers, the incidence of cancer, or any other events demonstrate our desire to assign a particular theory to the occurrences. We do this with deaths, accidents, and even ”miracles.” Of course, there are causes and factors that contribute to random events and tragedies—a complexity of unique histories, origins and behaviors.

Researchers concluded that “people have a very poor conception of randomness; they do not recognize it when they see it and they cannot produce it when they try,” and what’s worse, we routinely misjudge the role of chance in our lives and make decisions that are demonstrably misaligned with our own best interests.

We tend to over-interpret and overanalyze this randomness. We can become emotionally invested in our interpretations. And we can lose our way.

In one of the most famous children’s stories, Chicken Little is hit on the head with an acorn and then declares that the sky is falling. She convinces all of her friends to follow her to tell the King, which ultimately ends in her demise and the death of all of her colleagues. A really brutal children’s tale that reveals something about the adult human world, where paranoia and falsehoods lead to the unnecessary deaths of all. Sound familiar?

Why are branches falling around us? Do we understand each tree? It has little to do with us. It is about the trees. Can we see the trees from the forest? Can we appreciate the randomness and suddenness of life?