In many hardwoods there are trees that grow straight and tall and their grain is perfect and when finished it is frankly boring.

The hardwoods that are beautiful are those with a distinctive and interesting grain. Bird’s eye maple. Curly maple. Walnut and elm burl. It is not by accident that these hardwoods with beautiful figuring in their grain are highly prized. But why aren’t they all like that?

Nobody absolutely for sure knows what causes Bird’s eye Maple or curly maple. It is apparently either a genetic defect or a infection of some kind or another or even possibly certain types of minerals in the soil that causes that figure in the wood and nobody can really tell whether it’s going to be one tree or the next. It is almost exclusively by accident that people find curly Maple or bird’s eye maple.
Even a wood which is generally considered more structural like oak or elm can have this effect, which is called chatoyance, and only a really good sawyer can identify and accentuate it.

Spalting is another process that happens to a variety of hardwoods and it is caused by a type of fungus that grows inside the living tree. The effect in the grain pattern is stunning. Dense hardwoods like Walnut and elm can develop a burl which is again caused by either a genetic defect or a parasite or infection that causes an unusual production of xylem and makes the beautiful flame figure prized by gunstock makers and furniture makers alike.

It is the nature of human beings to be imperfect. Those who are merely imperfect are probably the very best of us. Most of the rest of us are probably just broken. Some, if not all of us, are badly broken and more than just a few are severely broken.

They merely imperfect people probably completely understand their imperfection. Like straight grained wood they are strong sturdy and boring. On the other hand The most severely broken do not or will not accept their brokenness.

That brokenness is not necesarily a curse nor does it have to be a problem. It can be that the defect in a human being is the feature that is found to be beautiful like the grain in an expensive wood.

Sometimes that imperfection might act as a lens to focus or to accentuate a special ability. And this gives us artists. Gifted craftsman. Inspired scientists. Our lives, and in fact the human condition in general, are improved by the existence of those people. People who create beautiful art and design. People who invent and improve and accentuate the mechanisms of our lives, industrially, commercially, medically, agriculturally.

This is of course not always the case. There are a lot of people who’s brokenness leads them to destroy or create ugliness or worst of all to break other people the same way they are broken. In the same way that you would value a piece of wood from a tree that had one of the diseases that caused that beautiful grain, you would prune or cut down a tree whose very nature was twisted and rotten, and which could not be saved. Especially if it’s disease was likely to spread to other trees.

One of the hallmarks of good brokenness versus bad brokenness is self-awareness. The “tell” so to speak, seems to be a vehement denial of the mere suggestion that anything could be wrong with that individual.

As a discernment tool, this is not 100% accurate; there are perfectly decent people incapable of accepting the fact that they’re fucked up as Chinese algebra, just as much as there are total sociopaths that feel the same way. Likewise there are people who think they’re severely fucked who’s only infirmity is an ability to deal with other people.

But it is a relatively safe bet that if you do not accept the fact that you are messed up you are some of the worst kind of messed up.