"He was entranced by fire — with a real-estate agent recalling seeing an estimated 1,000 candles in Hsieh’s Park City, Utah, home..."

"'[He] explained to me that the candles were a symbol of what life was like in a simpler time'.... The quirky entrepreneur... also liked to use a heater in his girlfriend’s shed to decrease his oxygen level, sources told the media outlet. Hsieh also inhaled nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, a k a whippets, to try to decrease his oxygen use.... But playing with his oxygen intake was only one part of Hsieh’s manipulation of his body. Hsieh would go on a 26-day alphabet diet, in which he would only eat foods starting with a single letter each day, such as 'a' the first 24 hours, 'b' the second, and so on, nearly fasting by the letter 'z'.... He got down to 100 pounds at one point.... Hsieh also would see how long he could go without urinating.... A pal told the Journal that Hsieh was like 'the Giving Tree' — the selfless character in the Shel Silverstein kiddie classic that gives so much of itself that it is left with nothing."

From "Zappos founder Tony Hsieh spent last hours planning to enter rehab" (NY Post).

The Giving Tree was giving — sacrificing to provide the boy with benefits. Hsieh's sacrifices did not give anyone else anything but merely pared away from the person making the sacrifices. You'll have to imagine an alternative children's book called "The Giving Up Tree." 

Even in "The Giving Tree," we question whether the tree — that is, the person represented by the tree — should have given everything. Shouldn't the boy — at some point — have learned about giving from the tree and become a giver himself? Shouldn't he have given back? 

But "The Giving Up Tree" is not going to become a children's classic. Decreasing oxygen intake, resisting peeing, eating quince and quinoa on the 17th day of a highly conceptual diet. 

Well, I admit that alphabet books are popular with children. Maybe there already is a book that begins "On the first day, X ate applesauce and angel hair pasta...." and ends "On the 27th day, he was dead."

Oh! I know where I got that line. I was given "Struwwelpeter" when I was a child, and I remember "The Story of Augustus, Who Would Not Have Any Soup":

Augustus was a chubby lad; 

Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had: 

And everybody saw with joy 

The plump and hearty, healthy boy. 

He ate and drank as he was told, 

And never let his soup get cold. 

But one day, one cold winter's day, 

He screamed out "Take the soup away! 

O take the nasty soup away! 

I won't have any soup today." 

Next day, now look, the picture shows 

How lank and lean Augustus grows! 

Yet, though he feels so weak and ill, 

The naughty fellow cries out still 

"Not any soup for me, I say: 

O take the nasty soup away! 

I won't have any soup today." 

The third day comes: Oh what a sin! 

To make himself so pale and thin. 

Yet, when the soup is put on table, 

He screams, as loud as he is able, 

"Not any soup for me, I say: 

O take the nasty soup away! 

I WON'T have any soup today."  

Look at him, now the fourth day's come! 

He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum; 

He's like a little bit of thread, 

And, on the fifth day, he was—dead! 

Go to the "Struwwelpeter" link to see the illustrations of the rapid weight loss that befalls anorexic Augustus. And look for the also-relevant "Dreadful Story of Harriet and the Matches":

...But Harriet would not take advice: 

She lit a match, it was so nice! 

It crackled so, it burned so clear— 

Exactly like the picture here. 

She jumped for joy and ran about 

And was too pleased to put it out....

"Struwwelpeter" is a powerfully memorable book. It was written — in German — in 1835 — by a psychiatrist.  

Would you give that to your sweet little child? Is it more or less dangerous than "The Giving Tree"? 

I wonder what books influenced Tony Hsieh. 

He, himself wrote a book, "Delivering Happiness." It was a best-seller in its time. Who will read it now? Here's a 1-star review at Amazon, written before Hsieh's untimely death:

For full transparency I only read the first third of this book before I took it to Goodwill. I just couldn't take anymore. It's written at a very low educational level which goes to show, you don't really need brains to be rich or even be a billionaire, what your really really must have is Luck and a lot of it....

Even when you have a lot of luck, you can run out.