Things spawned from email conversations

We try to mark things linearly with mile markers and obvious signs and post. Life isn't like that, though, life is like tree rings. We don't look at trees and say, "Oh, that tree just got a new ring!" No, we don't see the effects of rain and sun until much later; we see it in the height of a tree from one season to the next, or in the rings when the tree is cut down. Human life is the same way, we change gradually; it's not until we've gone through a growing season that we realize how tall we are, or until we're dead that others realize how old we are, so to speak.