In the song Roots, by Bob Marley, there is this line that keeps hitting me: some people are roots, some are branches, some are leaves, and some are just dry wood to burn so "they" can cook their raw food.
The dry wood part is what gets me. Is he saying some people are just born to be consumed? Like they exist purely as fuel for someone else's benefit - wage slaves grinding away in ignorance while others live with actual purpose?
Or is it more about spiritual death? Like the dry wood people could have been something more but they let themselves wither, and now they're just useful idiots getting burned up by the system?
The religious/Rasta symbolism here seems heavy but I'm not fully grasping it. Is this predestination talk, or is he saying people choose to become dead wood through their own actions?
What's the actual meaning behind this metaphor? Anyone familiar with Rastafarian philosophy who can break this down?