- A branch cut away from the branch beside it is
simultaneously cut away from the whole tree. So too a human
being separated from another is cut loose from the whole
community.
The branch is cut off by someone else. But people cut
themselves off—through hatred, through rejection—and don’t
realize that they’re cutting themselves off from the whole
civic enterprise.
Except that we also have a gift, given us by Zeus, who
founded this community of ours. We can reattach ourselves
and become once more components of the whole.
But if the rupture is too often repeated, it makes the
severed part hard to reconnect, and to restore. You can see
the difference between the branch that’s been there since the
beginning, remaining on the tree and growing with it, and the
one that’s been cut off and grafted back.
“One trunk, two minds.” As the gardeners put it.- As you move forward in the logos, people will stand in
your way. They can’t keep you from doing what’s healthy;
don’t let them stop you from putting up with them either. Take
care on both counts. Not just sound judgments, solid actions
—tolerance as well, for those who try to obstruct us or give
us trouble in other ways.