Nature, you see, will always win. It is more powerful than you or I.
You can put the plant in the perfect soil, with the perfect amount of sun, water it down to the perfect drop of moisture it needs. You can sing to it, caress it, gaze upon it adoringly and yet, despite this, it may still die within days. Pests, winds from storms, bizarre diseases can and will strike down your perfection at any moment. It is humbling lesson to be sure.
It is also one very few of us learn anymore. Who bothers with planting things when you can go to the grocery store?
I think Thomas Jefferson was very correct when he said that when we became piled on top of each other like the cities of Europe and no longer had a link to the land and agriculture we would simply fall victim to the same childish fighting and whining of those nations. And oh, but we have.
The environmental activist lives in a high rise apartment building in a concrete fortress called a city. The animal rights activist hasn't adopted any stray animals or even put out bird seed. The Conservative Christian activist turns people away from church because they are "sinners". Politicians don't disagree on issues any more, they have to call the other side evil or corrupt. Opposition on the left and the right spin conspiracy theories all day and all night. The noise of all this is one big chaotic din of nonsensical yapping by childish know it alls.
In other words they can just shut the hell up until they have something useful to do with themselves.
Therefore one must profess their freedom and liberty from all this by ingoring it. If you spend your time rolling around in shiote all day, you probably will end up smelling like shiote. I think if one seeks out the lofitier higher ground in life the better your chances of one day living on that ground.
We humans, oh how we think so much of ourselves. Many cast aside spiritual pursuits and it's submission. They may proclaim themselves their own personal saviour of this or that. But it is useless. All of us are still powerless whether you believe in a higher being or not. Nature will always kick our arse but good. It will always win and nothing we can do will change that. The Earth will one day make us all a speck of soil.
The lesson of the gardener. The wind, the rain, the sun, the moon the gods worshipped by the ancients still have us at their mercy. And we should never forget that.

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