Cactus personality : a way of survival

Cactaceae

Few years ago, I started giving a very minor …. really minor … attention to plants. I have no patient to take care plants..well…sometimes I have no patients to take care my self either. :p

About three years ago, I helped my uncle to get rid off the  grass and bamboo from his garden. I found out that these plants have amazing personality. If you look at the grass…you will not think that they are indeed one of the plants having amazingly energy to survive.  In contrast with human being who should wear many layers of clothes during winter and almost naked during summer, i find out that grass have more stable behavior: they are still green passing through different seasons. How many times, how many people step on the grasses and they are still there humbly? Amazing, right?

Try to dig the land below the grass and you will be more amazed. A root of grass is tiny, weak, fragile …. but flexible. In my opinion, the survival ability of grasses come from the flexibility of their root to tangle each other. The root of grasses can grow even longer than their leaves and travel inside the soil. If you want to get rid off the grass you should be sure not to leave any trace of root because they still can grow. I respect grass of how they able to survive in silent, with minor caring of human being! Furthermore, don’t forget the importance of grasses in the history of mankind’s evolution. It is used to make papers, to feed animal that we eat (hallo…beef lover, let’s thanks to the grasses) or simply to give us a comfort bed to lay on it in under sunset, hearing the whisper of wind. 🙂 Similar character of root is shown by bamboo. Once you decide to grow bamboo in your back yard, be ready to work hard to get rid off it.

My brain rang out when one day accidentally I paid attention to the cactus of my flat mate.  I don’t like cactus and I don’t understand why some people are crazy about it. I can not see the beauty of the cactus even though when some of them sometimes are in bloom. For me, this plant symbolize arrogant personality.

“You are like a rose. You are beautifull but your thorn seems to me saying that you don’t want me to walk closer to you. You are untouchable.”

That is my favorite quote when I am broken heart. But now..i think i have new symbol to describe the situation when someone wants to send you to the moon : cactus.

Cactus is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a native to Americas. As they able to live in the extreme environments where water is rare;  their thorns, spines (they are infact  modified leaves)are important to conserve water, to defend themself against the water-seeking animal and to protect themself against the excessive sunlight.

I still believe that human being is created basically as a good person. However, the interaction with other people may leave behind deep and strong memories  that can be either good or bad for the future. The social tension also can influence really hard circumstance to handle.

I have strange idea that history of a nation should be written down more personal. I know that it will not be easy, because the most difficult part is to be honest to our self, destroy the mask that we are used to wear and admit it to the world.  Behind the most objective decisions, behind the man who decides, there is always a personal history that influence the decision. As once Hilary Clinton said during her running to White House, “It (this election) takes me personally“.  Furthermore, what is the reason behind my cold behavior to my parent, to my flatmate, to my colleagues, to the one that I love so much? One of the reason may come from the basic need to survive, to conserve my existence, to protect my self.  A mask. Just like the role of spines of cactus.

Recently I decided to said this to the one I love so much, ” I am sorry, I can no longer express my cares to you. The more I express my cares to you, the deeper my love for you, the more you become my cocaine. I am afraid.” And yeah… I become the cactus itself, in order to protect my self of being addicted of him. I started to grow my thorns in both direction, inside and outside. Hurting my self and him. A very deep breath….

 

Karlsruhe, 26 September 2009.

 

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Adopted vs Genetic Children

 

Genetic illustration. Pics from here http://www.umm.edu/graphics/images/en/19096.jpg

First, let me clarify my standpoint: At the moment, I don’t want to be classified as a follower to one of the existed religions. I had chatolic background; the fact that will always be true and I should admit that this catholism is one of the most influencing input in my life.  Anyway, I don’t want to make give more clear description of my opinion about religion and related issues in the current post.

However  my standpoint is important otherwise all of my thought, my opinion about this topic has  found its answer.  As far as I know, one of the goal of marriage in the main stream religion (let say Moslem and Christianity) and widely excepted in the society is for the continuity of human’s gen thru the children. 

At the moment I can only say this about life : I continue to survive because I want to respect the life itself for the reason that is not so clear for me. In the time of happiness, I have very high energy in trying to  ‘change’ our imperfect world. In the time full of disappointment, full of desperate, full of tired of survive; I feel simply life is an absurd, full of mystery.  Well, I  also make question about life in the time of hapiness but it is not so intense as in time I am tired of survive. I should admit that I am in the lowest energy condition at the moment so that it give me an additional energy to write down one of my burried questions.

I alwyas has this in my mind: is this really matter if human being stop the evolution or let say doomsday? Regardless the judgment day issue in the religion;  is this really matter? Does safe the gens (more specifically my gens) more important than the fact that so much abandoned children all over the world, amongst the reality that lots of children being traped in the hunger? To be honest, when I think of those unlucky children, I see it is really absurd to have genetic child by my own.

More than 5 years ago, I said this to Rusman, one of my best friend, ” I will be honored to give birth to my genetic children. However, for me having adopted children is also an option. I don’t see my self  of having really superior gens that is really important  for the sake of human’s evolution.” If having children is the question of fullfilment of the needs of loving (as I think so..), can we human being also just give our love to the abandoned children? If having children is the question of loving, can we just express the love by supporting the family who has not enough resources to raise their children? If the evolution of human being is matter; does it really matter which gens should be safed first to be carried over thru generations (so there will be a kind of prefered gens)?  OR..sHould I believe in the opinion one of my colleague during  lunch: “People who don’t have inherit simply fail as human being, even for the couple that for the health reason could not have children.” Regardless the situation that I have no children so far, I am really sure to answer him, ” No, I don’t agree with you.”

I said to one of my friend that I want to have children and that I can be a good mother as well. He said,

” Do you know what do you want to do or do you know where do you want to live? If you can not answer this, then forget about it. You are not ready to have children. You are not going to raise a puppy. We are talking about the children that at some point they will think that they have right to ask something without saying thank you; the children that at some point will make their own decission without even bother to ask your opinion.”

It is a reallly dense conclusion of the meaning of having children. Anyway, I tried to argue with him that nowadays, we can not be really sure of what we can do to get money for survive.  This is the picture of most scientists around me, ” THey don’t have permanent contract for their living. They only have 3 or 5 years working contract, the rest is to be advised later. In this conditions, I think people will think many times before having children because children need to be feed and so on and so on.” This is the biggest ‘commedy’ of capitalism: In one side, capitalism needs certain birth growth rate to secure the supply of labor force but in the same time capitalism doesn’t give any financial security to the people. But hey… does money really important factor before a couple decides to have children or not? This is the statistic released by Spiegel ONline International about Germany, the country which in my opinion gives quite good support to families life by giving ceratin money for parents and children: the germany’s birth rate is the lowest amongst other EU countries. No… at the end, I believe it is not only about money.

One of the most oftenly answered by parents for the questions why they works so hard day and night is they do this for children. At this point, why don’t we be critical, does it really money that children need? To be fair, why don’t we ask children, what they expect from parents? Let’s children talk of their own ….

I want to conclude to this post. I will never refuse to have my genetic children, i think it must be a really wonderfull experience but to have and to be able to love adopted children as my own genetic children is not less wonderfull experience. I think I will be a good mother but the remain issue is that as a single woman I have no brave to have, to raise adopted/genetic child. Case is closed for the moment. Talking about adpotion, it reminds me of my jealousy to my brother when i was small. I asked my mother, “Mother, am I your adopted child? Why do you love my brother more than your love to me? I am the youngest, so you should give me more attention.”  Well…you can not guess how ‘silly’ the children can be… I have no idea how  I could connclude that adopted child will receive less love. It is a bit unfair for the parents who love their adopted child badly.

I dedicated this post to all people (couple/single) who are brave enough to take a risk by having children and especially to my mother who is brave enough to raise all her 4 children by her own, to be a single parent for more than 20 years without any significant words of complaining. Happy b’day Mom! (30th August)

 

Karlsruhe, 5th September 2009.