Trees and Life — Liberty Wealth

We are back from a magical summer and now at home in quarantine for the next 15 days. I guess quarantine does at least give oneself a chance to recover from jet-lag and offers time for reflection. A pause between two different worlds.

Since lock-down last year I have struggled to write – whilst before ideas would flow freely, suddenly there were none. Each blog post felt forced. Now I realise why – it’s getting out into the world, being in nature, meeting new people, listening and watching – this is where I get my inspiration. And so, I return from six weeks of adventures out in the amazing world full of thoughts to share. Here follows the start of what I hope is a return to more regular writing.

History and nature – two things that I think most people find themselves getting more interested in as they go through life. The Highlands of Scotland was a fascinating place for both. The history is brutal (the show Outlander had it mostly accurate) and hearing it told by the locals was haunting.

We found ourselves deep in the Fraser clan territory and spent an afternoon walking through a beautiful Glen where James Fraser planted trees in the late 1700s.

We also took a long walk around Loch Affric. Glen Affric is reputed to be the most beautiful Glen in the Highlands. It still holds some of the ancient Caledonian Pine forest that once covered vast swathes of the Highlands. These were the woodlands in which Bonnie Prince Charlie hid after the battle of Culloden in 1746. Walking through those giant trees that have stood there for hundreds of years, providing a link to the past, felt strangely poignant.

I love trees*. When you sit under a tree that has been there since 1700 you can’t help but think about all that has passed under those branches. The conversations, the wars, the love affairs, the people who have sat there seeking rest and respite or just a little shade. The world around it has changed but it has continued the only thing it knows – growing upwards and outwards and spreading its seed as far as it can.

There is a lot of forestry in the Highlands – a monoculture of alien species. But today, things are becoming more enlightened. Many of the alien trees are being felled. For now it’s a blight on the landscape. But where they would have once replanted more non-indigenous trees, they are re-planting native forests. It’s a re-wilding, a return to the Caledonian forests that once stood. It will take at least a generation before the beauty of those areas are restored. The people spearheading the projects are unlikely to reap the benefits. These are legacy projects.

James Fraser had this same vision in the 1700s when he planted the beautiful trees that still stand today in Reelig Glen, where we spent an afternoon. He didn’t plant them for himself, he did it for his children and his children’s children.

There is a universal law of nature that causes a tree to take root and grow. It doesn’t need that much – food, water, space, light and patience. It doesn’t want to be dug up and checked upon. It doesn’t much want to be moved. It wants to be left alone, to slowly grow and flourish so that it’s shade can be enjoyed for generations.

Despite a world that is always changing, the laws of nature never change. Growing a tree today is no different to how it was when James Fraser planted his, hundreds of years ago.

And so it is with wealth – if you apply the same vision and let it be. The growth of wealth is no less organic than the growth of these beautiful trees. The laws never change - faith, patience and discipline - the same today as it was in 1700. As Jason Zweig once wrote, “good advice rarely changes, while markets change constantly”.

In a world where our attention span has reduced to a matter of seconds, take a moment to sit under a tree.

“Somebody’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”

— Warren Buffett

Georgie

georgie@libertywealth.ky

*I wrote this before returning home to the damage caused by Tropical Storm Grace and was so sad to see our beautiful sea grape tree that towered over our garden, providing shade and privacy from the world across the canal, fell in the wind. My extraordinarily resourceful husband single-handedly heaved it from the canal (ask him for the story) and whilst it is a fraction of the tree it once was, we are hopeful it will continue to take root and fill in the void.