OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD
DARWIN WAS ON TO SOMETHINGI believe
Darwin was on to something
IMPORTANT...
adaptation,
which is another way of saying
compromise...
and survival is NOT what it’s ALL about,
but definitely what it’s partly about...
The pleasure factor having
to be taken into account
because without some of that
survival wouldn’t be, shall we say,
worth it, whatever “it” is.
But back to the question or
proposition (a word that could
lead to all kinds of tangents) which
has to do with getting along, going
along sometimes, even when it
means not doing exactly what I
want to do or being exactly where
I want to be... SURVIVAL with
at least a little pleasure, provided
by myself if that’s the only way
to get it... adaptation is what
plants do... and animals, which
is what i am, do it
some reluctantly, knuckling under,
crying “uncle”... some with glee and
ABSOLUTE JOY... so “You pays your
money and you takes your choice.”
You can adapt and like it or
you can fight it all the way.
Whatever way the orchid
came to be how and where it
is, I want to take that same route.
Any way you look at it, the orchid
in question is absolute gentleness
with a ferocious look.
2 comments:
Hi, Jerral. What you wrote about these fantastic flowers reminded me of a wonderful essay D. H. Lawrence wrote, called "Study of Thomas Hardy," or something like that. He contrasts the hidebound cabbage with the poppy, which spends its existence in the sheer expression of itself. The cabbage, he says, has to break open its own head to flower. (Honestly, I haven't read this essay since the 1980s, but it struck me as so true at the time.)
Thanks for this, and thanks to Liz for fwding it.
Scog,
Thanks very much for reminding me of Lawrence’s Study of Thomas Hardy and his development of the images of the poppy and the cabbage... and the phoenix. Your note reminds me that I have been intending to reread some of both Hardy and Lawrence. I’ve actually had Women in Love laid out on my desk to begin... and The Return of the Native with it’s extraordinary opening sentence, which your note prompted me go and reread tonight... and to remind myself that if I can just once take an actual photograph that pictures a scene as vividly as Hardy does Egdon Heath with words, I’ll have become a happy photographer...
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