The Existential Garden

I came of age in that sliver of time when people were social and justice was blind. I am too young to be a child of the '60's and too old to be one of the '70's.

You cannot garden and not be observant of change. As much as you want to hold moments of perfection still, you learn to let go. You learn what is needed and get to work, for a garden neither cheers nor whines — it responds. Garden long enough and you learn that come what may, to be at peace. What is meant to be in the end, prevails.

Learning to use what the garden teaches is very useful in the world outside. So many things have changed during this brief period in history that has been my life.

Growing up with the writings of Hemingway, say "Great White Hunter" and my generation's minds paint pictures filled with men of great stature. Men like Theodore Roosevelt hunting the large mammals of North America and Great Plains of Africa.

Recently, I asked individuals, graduates of different years from Diamond Bar High School, just what do great white hunters hunt. The up and coming generation doesn't associate bears or elephants or any creature of the land with the phrase. Instead they go to the literature of the silver screen. They go to Steven Speilberg's beach-clearing killing machine in Jaws. 

It is not illogical that Great White Hunters hunt Great White Sharks. This vision is very different, but just as valid.

Other changes in our culture remind me of invasive plants. Attractive, but not so wise to plant because they spread through he cultural eco-system at the expense of what is healthy.

In politics it is healthier to want respect more than support. The only way to gain respect  is just like creating beauty in the garden. You have to work for it and understand that despite your best efforts, there is always an element of risk.