Would You Rather Be A Flower Or Warmth?
An April question to rouse you.
Here’s a nice April question to rouse you from your winter blues and open your heart to spring. Would you rather be a flower or warmth? They both sound pretty good, at least at face. But they also both carry some negative qualities that present themselves to you after you think about them for longer than just a moment. So it’s a hard choice. Flowers are beautiful, so that’s something. When you type “flowers represent” into Google the autofill generates these searches: “life,” “love,” “hope,” “rebirth,” “months.” Those are all pretty good. Plus, one of them — you might remember — is from a Barack Obama poster. However, if you type “flowers represent” into Google and leave the text curser resting against the “t” without entering another space, it autofills to “representing” and then the suggested searches are: “death,” “love,” “family,” “peace,” “life.” Still mostly good, but it’s hard not to notice the first one is “death.” So you have to consider that. Warmth, now there’s a wonderful thing. Lie on your bed when the sun is shining through your window. Leave the house without so many layers on. If you were warmth, you could make a lot of people happy all at once. However here’s something you have to consider, [take a pause now]: global warming. I know. I hate to bring it up right away, but “Would You Rather Be” isn’t a series that was created to protect anyone’s feelings. It’s a series that was created for solemn and thoughtful decision-making, and forced introspection. So you have to consider global warming. Are you OK with choosing warmth knowing that you are also choosing global warming? Life and death. Comedy and tragedy. A nice feeling and a Chinese hoax. Hmm. It’s hard. Flowers die, and they’re expensive. Flower seeds aren’t that expensive, but I don’t know who’s growing flowers. I have a planter out back and every year I consider growing flowers but I always decide that I’d rather not attract bees. My porch already attracts a lot of wasps every year, which is very bad. Sometimes I’m out there reading and I just have to surrender the whole thing to the wasps because I can’t take it. Too scary. I’m too afraid. Plus they’re malicious. There’s gotta be like…a nest somewhere. Anyway, I’m not trying to attract bees, too. I hate bees. I’m very afraid of them in a real way. (Perhaps a check in the “pro” column for global warming is the “bees dying” thing.) So I guess that’s something about flowers — bees. No thanks. Oh, but we were talking about how they’re expensive and they die. They bring you a lot of joy, flowers, and they’re just so nice to have around, and they smell good, but they do cost money and then you have to throw them away. That’s if you’re buying flowers. You can also see flowers for free, if you’re outside. Warmth, during springtime and summertime, is free, but during the winter you have to buy it. I bet you didn’t think about that. You’re thinking, “you have to buy flowers, but warmth is free for everyone.” No it’s not. Not all the time. This is why it’s important to talk these things out, sometimes there are angles you haven’t considered. Too much warmth can kill. Can too much flowers kill? Yes. Here’s an interesting article: “10 Beautiful Flowers That Kill In Horrifying Ways.” Flowers can kill your dog, too. So can warmth. So that’s a tie.
Which would you rather be?
