My Foray into the Wood Industry: When Paper Dreams Meet Avian Side-Eye

La gazette des tranchées

"Le seul journal où la liberté de la presse est garantie par l'armée"

"The only newspaper where press freedom is guaranteed by the army"

I had a plan: cut down trees, make paper, get rich. Simple. Foolproof. Or so I thought. The first few trees fell with a satisfying thud, and I felt like a man of industry, a captain of commerce, a titan of timber.

But then, as the forest grew quieter and the stumps multiplied, I noticed something unsettling—the birds. Not just a few, but entire families of them, perched on the remaining branches, staring at me like I’d just evicted them from their ancestral homes. One particularly bold robin even dropped a pinecone at my feet, as if to say, "Here, take this. It’s all you’re getting from us now."

That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t a businessman. I was a monster. A deforester. A bird-displacer. A man who had just realized, mid-chainsaw swing, that he was the bad guy in this story. So, I did what any self-respecting, guilt-ridden Frenchman would do: I stopped. Not because I had a better plan, but because I suddenly understood that my "industry" was less about paper and more about regret.

I didn’t pivot to digital. I didn’t launch a tech startup. I just stood there, chainsaw in hand, and thought, "Maybe… maybe cutting down trees isn’t the best way to make paper." Revolutionary, I know. The birds, at least, seemed to approve. They stopped glaring and went back to their nests, probably whispering to each other, "Finally, he gets it."

So here I am, a man who set out to conquer the wood industry and instead discovered the art of doing nothing. No digital empire. No virtual trees. Just a forest that’s still standing, a chainsaw that’s gathering dust, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing I didn’t ruin everything

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