Indifference as an entitlement
Indifference as an entitlement
Know your rights and know your plants!
My belief system has never been under greater assault than now. The world's existence has never been under greater threat. My desire to know and understand has never been greater as understanding is half the battle. I write because it is a rational activity. I read because it informs me. I spend time in nature in all its majesty and its reassuring cycles. I see plants as growth in paralytic times of so much waste and destruction. I do art work as it is creating something new.
Strife fosters an appreciation of how precious life and living are and intensifies. gratitude.
Happiness is facing the world as it is, and fortifying ourselves against the lashes of the storm.
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Retirement is supposed to be the tranquil last chapter of lives well spent. For me it has been a liberation and a second chance. I started my retirement with a near fatal bout of COVID. Death was knocking at the door and it came very close to hammering it down. Episodes like this can change your attitude to life dramatically as so many other survivors have attested. It is akin to a rebirth and a new lease on life. Now I have freedom to pursue my interests in writing, art and history and other trimmings that come with the later years.
One of the great ironies of life is that it is only with the golden years do we come to have an inkling of what life is all about. Some how a lot of accumulated experience converts into a modicum of wisdom and insight.
As Spring unfolds plants long dormant spring back to life. I live on a rain coast where plants grow at spectacular rates and the greening of the landscape in spring time jumps out at us. After a winter of indifference there is abundance and inspiration.
Skunk cabbage is one of the first signs of spring. It is bear food for those just out of their winter dens. In spite of its name and smell it has a beautiful yellow blossom.
The Russian thistle arrives later; but is also one of my favorites. It has a beautifully articulated leaf and a prickly presence for unwary predators.
By my definition weeds are often beautiful plants that simply grow in the wrong place by our standards. Weeds are a walk on the wild side. They have an intrepid sense of entitlement. They have a beauty of their own.
Morning glory is a large family of flowers. We have a variety that is highly invasive. It has a deceptive attractive white blossom but will take over your garden in the wink of eye. It grows at a alarming rate and uses other plants and structures as trellises to grow over. Its root system runs on stringers just below the surface. To contain them the root system has to be totally ripped out.
I call morning glory the “fascist “ flower. Their white blossoms give them a beguiling presence but their intention is much more sinister for the gardener who is less than diligent.
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We are at a time in the Western world where our rights have never been under a greater assault. The assault is persistent and unremitting. We have to address some hard issues on what are our rights and entitlements and our willingness to conserve and protect them from the elites who are waging a war on them to serve their wicked agendas.
In times of peace and tranquility indifference is a somewhat acceptable entitlement. In a state of war it becomes a less defendable entitlement verging on defeatism and abdication.
One very big reason we are in this mess is that our political leadership over too many decades has been and is now delinquent in defending entitlements as well as proactively subverting them. Where they are mandated to defend the bastions of Western civilization they have failed to do so. They declare war on others attempting to scapegoat their self-inflicted failures and corruptions. They are cannibalizing the very cultures they are supposed to serve.
Our political classes see indifference as their entitlement, and it is infectious. For them indifference too easily mutates into assorted corruptions.
We are indifferent to the cycles of own nature; and a long way from being diligent and caring gardeners.
We foster chaos when we should be pursing equilibrium and harmony.
The white picket fence is no defense against the weeds invading our gardens. Indifference is not an option. Some weeds are more friendly, than others.
Some of the best gardens are where we find them, with no fences.