The "Will" to Survive

I came across this tree during a walk awhile back and was impressed by its survival skills.  I guess you can't talk about a tree's "will", not in a Nietzschian sense anyway.  But still, there's something both touching and impressive about this determined tree.  Was it knocked over by one of its fellow falling trees?  Bent by a vicious ice storm?  Just a little twisted from birth?  We'll never know, but this is one yellow birch that just won't give up.  Perhaps a lesson for these troubled times although I hope we don't end up as bent and bowed as our tree after our national economic mess has played itself out.