The Tree and the Spiral
How Kindness Grows,
From Self to World
The Story We Have Been Telling Ourselves
We live in a world that often feels rushed, divided, and quietly exhausted. Many of us have absorbed, almost without noticing, the idea that life is fundamentally competitive — that progress belongs to the strongest, the loudest, or the most ruthless. We are told, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that self-interest is realism, and that kindness is a luxury we can’t afford.
The TRee and the Spiral challenges that story.
A Different Premise
This book begins with a different premise: human beings are not wired primarily for domination and fear. We are wired for connection, cooperation, and care. Kindness is not sentimental idealism — it is part of our biological design.
Kindness as a Living System
Drawing on modern neuroscience, psychology, economics, and centuries of contemplative wisdom, The Tree and the Spiral explores kindness as a living system. Small moments of compassion create feedback loops — upward spirals — that shape our nervous systems, our relationships, our communities, and the systems we build together.
What we repeat becomes who we are. What we design becomes how we live.
The Tree Metaphor
At the heart of the book is a simple, powerful metaphor- the tree.
Like a tree, kindness grows from the inside out. Healthy roots — sleep, nourishment, movement, attention, and self-compassion — create the conditions for safety. When the body feels safe, the sap can rise.
That sap — trust, connection, oxytocin — feeds leaves, branches, and fruit. Without it, individuals and societies may survive, but they become brittle and do not thrive.
Language remembers this truth. We call excessive emotion “sappy,” often as a warning. But sap is not weakness — it is what keeps the whole system alive.
Widening Circles
The book unfolds in widening circles. It begins with the self, moves outward into relationships and community, and then steps into the clearing at the edge of the forest — the place where kindness encounters power, economics, systems, and other strange sightings.
Questions the book asks
-
What happens when societies are built on fear instead of trust?
-
Why do zero - sum systems promise safety but deliver anxiety?
-
How do authoritarian movements exploit our need for belonging?
-
How do individuals and communities interrupt these cycles — and begin again?
Where Ideas Become Personal
Rather than arguing abstractly, The Seed and the Spiral grounds these questions in everyday human experience—an ordinary person in a grocery store line, waiting to see if their card will go through; the quiet humiliation of scarcity; the clash between radical self-interest and mutual aid.
In these moments, ideology stops being theoretical and becomes human.
A Human Guide Through Hard Questions
Throughout the book, humor and humanity soften the hardest truths.
A Kurt Vonnegut–like voice makes a brief appearance to walk alongside the reader — curious, compassionate, and gently irreverent — reminding us that systems are made by people.
And people can choose to build them differently.
Growth rarely moves in straight lines
The Spiral Loops Back
The journey ultimately returns to where it began.
Like a spiral, kindness loops back to the self — but at a higher level. By the end of the book, the reader is invited to carry the whole ecosystem inside them:
Roots.
Sap.
Branches.
Canopy.
Forest.
One conscious breath.
One act of kindness.
One upward spiral.
What This Book Is — and Isn’t
The Tree and the Spiral is not a manifesto of moral perfection.
It is a practical, hopeful exploration of how humans actually work — and how we might design lives, communities, and systems that help us flourish together.
Kindness begins as a small seed.
Given the right conditions, it grows into a forest.
Coming soon to