"The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines” - Frank Lloyd Wright

 "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines” - Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). “Frank Lloyd Wright Talks of His Art,” New York Times Magazine, 4 October 1953

 If a life or a belief can be an edifice, then it can either be a living structure, or a dead one. A living structure is one that changes over time, which can learn and grow, or fall and fade. It turns slowly with the seasons, grows quietly through the years, and moves around from time to time. A dead structure is one which cannot react to changes Ina dynamic fashion, cannot move from where it is standing without outside assistance, and never grows up, only down. A living structure is certainly less stable than a dead one, being made with bones and string instead of concrete and steel, but I suspect that the living structure can weather a storm better. It might not appear like it will during the first storm when it is beaten down, and the concrete structure stands tall against the storm, but let the years pass, the ground move, and the storms come every year - you will see that the living structure, the living tree, bends and sways with the wind, dropping the occasional branch but never quite turning over. Meanwhile, the concrete structure will be slowly ground down, with numerous cracks appearing in its walls, leaks in the ceiling, and mold in the corners. An old tree looks majestic, while an old building looks decrepit. 

This is not to say that an old building cannot be a living building as well. Regular upkeep, new paint, efficient repairs, and responsible inhabitants may allow a building to gather a fine patina of age and grace, when the tree has long since fallen down and been replaced with its own saplings. Thus, we can see that a living tree, a single life, stands alone and tall throughout the years, ever growing and changing by itself, if need be, while the structural building requires a sort of symbiotic existence to remain standing for nearly as long. However, if it does survive, then it may form the new core of a renewed majesty. Even if it falls down, someone may come along and take out the good bricks to build a new home with, just as a fallen tree may be harvested for its wood, and thus take on a  new and surprising shape never envisioned by the original. Here then, we have two forms of life, and two ways in which we can live - remember though, that all the upkeep and support in the world can't make a bad edifice into a good one, for all that the beautiful lives of the living people who surround it may lend it their beautiful looks.

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