THE FLOWER TAKER

When I tell people that I manage community gardens, many ask me if people steal stuff that’s grown there.

Yes, sometimes they do.

Theft understandably discourages and angers gardeners. Keeping a productive garden requires work. Gardeners bend and/or get down on their hands and knees in hot, dirty conditions. While some of us mind that less than do others, all gardeners go at least a little out of their way to get to the gardens and devote time to planting, watering and weeding their garden spaces.

Bill Clinton is extremely phony. I’ve seldom taken seriously what he has said. But after 9/11, when asked if the world would soon descend into chaos, Clinton expressed, in a few words, a very big idea. He opined that chaos would not ensue because “Most people are builders.”

Most people are striving for something, whether material, experiential, interpersonal/familial or spiritual; or some combination of these. Chasing dreams is, by far and for most people, more motivational than are various destructive impulses. It makes the world go around. Paradoxically, allowing people to pursue their own dreams holds the world together. Though, of course, dreams sometimes collide and there must be some limits.

Growing stuff entails envisioning how the seeds you plant will, given care and sun and rain, turn into tasty and nutritious vegetables or fruits or beautiful flowers. Without this motivation, most people wouldn’t garden; the gardening process is enjoyable for most people, but this enjoyment is inextricably bound to expectation.

Yesterday, when I arrived very early at the gardens, I saw someone whom I didn’t recognize cutting, i.e., stealing flowers. I’ve seen evidence of theft many times before but I had never caught a person taking stuff.

Since I’m the one who plants most of the flowers and I look forward to how they will, when in bloom, look to the many people who visit or pass our site each day, seeing someone steal flowers displeased me; I saw the stealer as a representative for all others who had previously taken stuff, undetected. I approached her and told her that, by taking the flowers and bringing them home, she was depriving many people from seeing the flowers and was disrespecting the work I had done to plan, plant and care for the flowers. As I continued to speak and walk toward her, she scurried away.

This experience made me think more about continuing to provide free Substack (or, before that Medium) content, as I have for most of the past three years. Work deserves respect. The Internet has fostered the dysfunctional expectation that stuff should be free. There’s something displeasing about being taken for granted.

I won’t say much more regarding the paid, cf. unpaid, subscriptions. But going forward, most of my posts will be for paid subscribers. People should be willing to support what they value. Thankfully, many have.

Following/during a period in which the Med/Pharma and government-funded media has consistently, purposefully and audaciously misrepresented all things Corona/Covid—and thereby, misled billions of gullible people—the importance of alternative, truthful media, and the need to support such media, should speak for itself. But just in case, I’m saying so directly. If you think my four posts/month are worth less than a latte, I won’t try to change your mind.

I’ll post again, on-message, tomorrow.

I think the Comments below are interesting. I stand by my responses.