The Trees and the Forest

There are two kinds of people—those who focus on the forest, and those who see the trees. I am a tree person. I always have been. It’s not that I don’t value the forest or appreciate its importance. Quite the contrary. I’ve spent a good part of my life trying, as best I can, to be more of a forest person. And though over the years I’ve become better at viewing the whole, it is not something that comes naturally to me. I suppose it never will. But oh, I see the trees, with such ease…

I’ve always felt that my tendency to drift to the minutiae in life was a shameful flaw, something that required correction like blurry vision or crooked teeth. The old saying, ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees’ implies that those who attend to details miss the critical global picture. While there may be some truth to that, the reverse is also true. Those who focus solely on the larger perspective miss the important little stuff—the ordinary snippets that make up life.

My fascination with detail goes way back. As a school kid, I felt great satisfaction when, after countless mistakes, I finally solved an algebra problem. I remember my obsession with a particularly tedious high school art project where I copied the pointillism technique of painter Georges Seurat, dabbing hundreds of tiny dots with the tip of my brush to create a picture. And while I can’t say I enjoyed memorizing dates and useless facts, it is something that came fairly easily to me.

Even now, in my professional life, I have to gear up for work that requires a broader mindset. For the most part I manage this forest-related work quite well. But the things I most enjoy require steadfast attention to detail—proofreading, editing, developing work plans, coordinating events, writing proposals and project reports—dull, thankless tasks to many people, but not to me.

In my personal life, I enjoy organizing things, making lists, tidying up chaos. Attention to detail has its positive side, as I have a complete photographic record of my family life—first feedings and steps, birthdays, school concerts, snowstorms, Halloween, Christmas, family vacations to places like Puerto Rico, Wellfleet and Acadia, Nova Scotia, San Francisco, and the Grand Canyon.

The inner workings of my meticulous mind are preserved in my journals—one for jotting amusing quotes from my kids, another for copying favorite passages from books, one for my attempts at poetry, still another (kept in my purse) to capture ideas that come to me throughout the course of the day. I am at the peak of bliss in these moments. What could possibly be better to a tree person than to mull over details, pore over phrases, wonder over words? To spend endless hours writing, revising, editing, getting everything ‘just so.’ To conjure up, not just an adequate word, but a preeminent one—the one that was meant to be written, the one that perfectly, wholly expresses.

But of course a person’s focus in life isn’t really as simple as forest vs. trees. There are many intriguing shades in between, and shifts at different points along the way. The extremes are merely tendencies, the way we might view a situation, tackle a problem, notice (or ignore) something that crosses our path. As for me—I tend toward the trees, I bend into branches, I lean into leaves. I suppose I always will.