I want to introduce a new series on this site, which will be about your metaphorical garden and my literal one. Sort of.
I don’t mean I will be talking about gardening or the tips and tricks of gardening. I mean that I want to talk about the wisdom that can be derived from hard work at a long-term task. In my case, gardening. For some people, it is learning to read well, write better, play a musical instrument, become a powerlifter, support a political cause, a religious cause, or a family member.
In Eastern parlance, it is the idea of Kung Fu. Kung Fu does not mean martial arts, and it is not a style of martial art. It literally means hard work. A person can have Kung Fu at cooking, gardening, exercise, intellectual pursuits, or life’s emotional needs. It means discipline, hard work, and long-term motivation.
When I picked up gardening, I didn’t know I would find wisdom in it; I thought I would find pretty flowers. But over the last five years of seriously trying to turn every inch of my lawn into a flower bed, I have found so many more things. What does it mean to work at a long-term project that theoretically has no ending? What does it mean to only tend to what you can take care of well? When should you ask for help? When is it important to do it yourself? How much time and effort should you dedicate to any one task? Why is there such extreme satisfaction in the act of weeding? When is it important to help a
neighbor, and why does working on a complex project that others can see draw their attention?
There is nothing unique to the wisdom found in gardening, and I am not sure every metaphorical jewel will always work or hang together for other people, but I think there is something here that needs pointing out because so few of us work toward long-term goals today.
We are encouraged to spend time on thirty-second clips that show the results of other people’s lifelong pursuits or to pass the time with idle activities. I want to encourage you to find your own lifelong pursuit, one that you can never finish, and you can only asymptotically perfect. I want you to find your own wisdom and pass it on to your next generations and friends.
Let’s go get dirty…
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