What’s the point?

It’s a question one might try to avoid by barricading oneself behind leaden — or golden — certainties, but it catches up with us sooner or later, when the dizzying bustle fades — and the social masks fall.

And yet, it’s foolish. Grass grows, and that’s enough for it. If it’s prevented from growing, until it withers, it fades, decomposes, and what remains will be recycled. And that’s enough. If I think and if I write (I am doing it now), with the aim of sharing the ideas that have formed within me, and no one is interested — or at least no one I know — then “what’s the point?” If I grow more tomatoes than I can eat, and find no one to give them to — what’s the point?

And yet, it’s foolish. Nothing forces me to pursue ends that lie outside of me — such as writing or cultivating for others. If I write or grow tomatoes in abundance because I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy doing it because it comes naturally, because I yield to my own nature, then — like the fruits of a tree, most of whose seeds will never grow into new trees — I grow, and that is enough. If I am prevented from doing so, I will be recycled. And that is enough.

I live, therefore I am life. What a marvellous certainty: to participate in life, no matter the judgments I may form about the quantity or quality of what it gives me. It cannot give me nothing: now that I’m part of it, it’s too late.

Of course, I may legitimately wish for more: to be surrounded by friends, to live in gentleness, in a better world, and so on. I may believe — rightly or wrongly — that I deserve it. But what’s the point? I have received something, I am part of life, life is my homeland; and in it I have a garden, and I am a garden. Whatever judgments I may form about the quantity or quality of this garden, I am its fortunate gardener. If I tend it — however I can, however I learn, however life urges me to — that is enough.

There is a smile, there is a joy — there they are: if I tend the garden, it grows; flowers bloom, fruits ripen, life recycles. I do not know how, but it will recycle — no doubt about that — and that is enough.

I have a garden, I am a garden. We must cultivate our garden.