Dear Pneuma,

I had this thought today: I do not think many of us truly admire success.  If we did, the successful creatures would be our work: starlings, cockroaches, weeds.  Instead, it seems many of us tend in the desire to exert control and power.  We tend the weak, difficult and displaced, not out of a desire that they should succeed, but rather out of a desire that they conform to our notions of design and aesthetics.  Control, not care, guides our gardening.

To be fair, when growing food, and nurturing those things necessary for our life, it is important to protect them from competitors.  We can preference those things in our environment which will enhance our survival.  We cooperate.  Still, in my day to day, I cannot truly comprehend why I work so hard to kill out those that succeed, for the benefit of the grass.  Why lawn instead of dandelion?  Why songbird over cawing competitor?

Taking the thought further, I imagine the lives of women, and I see, perhaps a reason that we try so hard to keep women down.  When I ask myself why we do not include homeless, undereducated and drug-addicted persons in the plans for their salvation, I begin to see a possible answer.  When I wonder why our American society, as a whole, seems so adamant to protect the rarer persons, the already rich and powerful, I think it is that we do not actually enjoy another's success.

I think we like to trim, treat, feed, fertilize and prune into shapes pleasing to us.  I think we joy in creation, because it evidences an ability to influence, mold, change and utilize the world around us.
When life in that world thrives on its own, it needs to be chopped out, hacked up and poisoned out of being.  It obviously does not belong to us.  It is obviously something that does not need our control.  I believe that is a separate question entirely from whether or not it is something that needs our care.

Just thinking some new thoughts.  Do you have any you would share?

Cobalt Dreams