Plants

Since I spend a lot of time gazing blankly out of windows, I find myself staring at plants a lot.  Staring at people just freaks them out, and plants are more diverse as well.  I like the way plants will grow just about anywhere, or at least try to.  Halfway up a cliff, there's a little sapling straining to stay upright.  There on the window sill of the 17th floor, it's a tuft of grass growing in the dust.

In a documentary I saw once about the rainforest the narrator said that the canopy is so thick that there isn't enough light getting through to ground level to allow any of the sapings to grow.  It's not until a big old tree dies and topples that the rest of the trees get a chance.  Whichever one gets the most light grows the fastest and eclipses the others, dooming them while it takes its place amongst the gods.

Desert plants used to baffle me.  Why oh why did they live in the desert where life is so tough?  And why would you grow on the rocky crest of a hill when you could grow in the valleys where the soil is richer and the water trickles down to you every morning?  Seems like plants were generally making some pretty poor life-choices.

It wasn't until much later that it occured to me that plants don't choose where they take root.  They get scattered as seeds and don't get much choice in where they land.  They just have to make do with their lot in life.  Some of them live in the desert and that's just the way it is.  They probably haven't even heard of the jungle.  And if you did move them there, even just for a holiday, they'd die.

Plants, huh?.  Maybe they're the smart ones.