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An insult, a compliment

In Romanian, people use the expression ‘copil copac,’ literally translated to ‘tree child.’ They use it to describe a person who is naïve, uneducated, even stupid—for lack of a better word.

Last year was the first time I heard this expression. The language is bursting with such phrases, and I’m not even including the regionalisms. As someone who has learned Romanian as a third or fourth language, it’s not unusual for me to continue discovering them.
Still, this one struck me.

In its context, the meaning was clear. On one hand, it was not used with an endearing tone of voice, and on the other, the recipient of the insult certainly didn’t take it well. But the more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

To me, both a child and a tree carry a metaphysical significance that elevates them close to divinity. The child symbolizes innocence, purity, untamed potential, and imagination. Hence why Jesus is often depicted as a child, or even a baby.
The tree reminds us of the natural flow of life, its cyclical nature, and the invisible (the roots). Consider the tree of life, which has a parallel iteration in almost every culture or religion in the world, if not every single one.
Both archetypes have their own meaning and complement each other beautifully — yet this is by no means a compliment.

According to a quick Google search, the reason the term ‘copil copac’ exists is because a tree has no brain. And a child obviously lacks maturity, so I suppose they are therefore considered to have an inferior form of intellect.

While an understandable and sensible reasoning, it’s one that can also be disputed. Yes, hierarchies exist in the material realm. Dogs listen to their owners, children to their parents, civilians to the law, etc.
It serves a purpose — one of maintaining order.
Or at least the illusion of it. But who are the owners, parents, and the law supposed to care for and protect?

If any of those ‘instances’ fail to do their job properly, nobody bats an eye at rebellion. So I ask you: who really is at the top of this hierarchy? Neither? Both?

Could it be that a ‘tree child’ is feared, rather than pitied? That its quiet, unwavering presence unsettles those who have abandoned their own innocence?

In the spiritual realm, or through the eyes of the universe, there is no hierarchy. Each creature, organism, and molecule serves its purpose precisely. Everything bigger and smaller does the same.
Of course, by proximity and individual egos, these connections matter less or more, and liaisons, hierarchies occur.
See, I don’t think the planet Jupiter ‘cares’ about your upcoming big presentation. Maybe it wouldn’t even care if life on Earth ended.
And so, we crush ants, hopefully not spitefully but by accident.
Or we engage in self-destructive behaviors, fully aware of how our organs, neurons, and cells react.

A tree doesn’t answer to a king, yet it grows. A child, left to its own devices, discovers truth without being told what it should be. Perhaps the real insult is in believing that intelligence is only that which can be measured.

I don’t know where the end of this text is leading. Is it a message of staying humble? Recognizing the complexity of life? Elevating our environment to something equal to us? To be honest, I don’t know.
I just know that if someone called me a ‘tree child,’ I’d try to take it as a compliment.

So I ask you — if a tree had a mind, would it think like us? Or would it understand something we don’t — or never could?