Note Details
- Stage: seed 🌱
- Type: note
- Topics: music long-term-thinking trees
trees take 400 years (from Kim Cook)
The observation that certain trees require 400 years of growth before they are suitable for harvesting connects to a deep tradition of cathedral thinking — the practice of initiating projects whose completion lies far beyond the planner’s own lifetime. Medieval cathedral builders planted oak groves knowing the timber would only be ready for roof beams centuries later. The 400-year figure points to a temporal horizon that is almost incomprehensible in a culture oriented toward quarterly returns and next-day delivery.
Tycho is the ambient and electronic music project of Scott Hansen, a visual artist and musician whose work emphasises atmosphere, patience, and layered composition. Hansen’s approach to both music and design embodies a kind of slow craftsmanship — building textures through gradual accumulation rather than immediate impact. The connection to the 400-year timber concept is suggestive: some of the most resonant creative work requires planting seeds whose full expression will unfold on timescales that exceed any single session, project, or even career.
This idea resonates with long-term thinking frameworks like Stewart Brand’s pace layering and the Long Now Foundation’s 10,000-Year Clock project. The underlying question is: what are you willing to begin that you will never see completed?