Do you think plants get depressed?
As the winter cold begins to creep in, limiting the light and filling the air with a crisp, cold chill, do you think plants feel sad that their life cycle is drawing to an inevitable end and their time of glory is finally over? Do trees gaze down at excitable children as they dance in their fallen leaves and shed a silent tear for what was once the lush green growth extending from the edge of every branch?
We don’t think about plants as conscious beings, but perhaps that’s because we never really take the time to truly understand them. We’re very simple creatures really, us humans. We respond to facial expression, to sound and to action, feeling an emotional response to anything with big puppy-like eyes with relative ease.
Plants are slow, subtle and a lot of the time, barely noticeable.
We walk straight past plants every day, without seconds thought. Dandelions popping out from the cracks in the pavement, stinging nettles settled comfortable around a corner of a fence. Straight past we walk, noticing neither when it’s there or no longer there at all. An entire life cycle completed with barely another living thing to notice it ever existed at all.
There is evidence to suggest that plants may be social beings. I read an article about how scientists have discovered traits in plants similar to that of animals. Plants will grow together, pushing out any strangers who dare to pop up in their neighbourhood. They also compete with other plants for space, nutrients and light and in doing so, clearly acknowledge the presence of other living beings around them. So I believe it’s fair to suggest that plants are not quite the passive, unintelligent life forms we once assumed them to be.
As I was walking to my children’s school today, I happened to glance up at one of the houses down my road and found myself face to face with a tree growing out of someone’s guttering. I imagined a seed must have either been blown there or it was dropped from the mouth of a hungry squirrel. It had done what any seed wants to do, and grown. I wondered if it felt surprised to find itself growing at the top of someone’s roof and not safely on the ground. Or maybe it didn’t notice at all and assumed it had managed to grow exceptionally tall in a short space of time. Perhaps it had a bit of a chip on shoulder now, assuming it was some kind of super tree, about to take the forestry world by storm.
It was in that moment that I realised, other people don’t think like me.
The tree had clearly been growing on that roof for some time; it was about 2 foot tall. I wondered how many other people had looked up and noticed it there. And how many of those potential people had wondered how the tree was feeling, being up on that roof? Not many, is my guess.
A life shared is a life well lived. That’s how us humans think. We shudder at the thought of drifting through this life of ours, unnoticed. Unloved. Undiscovered potential, wasted opportunity, loneliness. It’s a disease, a dirty secret we keep swept under the rug, afraid of giving it much thought just in case it slips out and rears it’s ugly head for all to see. We long for the limelight, desperate to be noticed, recognised and understood.
Whenever I find myself feeling a little blue, I always end up turning to nature. To plants, in particular. Unlike people, or animals to some degree, plants have a way of settling my mind. Their existence is so seemingly simple and I welcome that simplicity during a time when my mind seems so chaotic. I think that’s why I personalise plants and enjoy the thought that they might have more human-like traits than we give them credit for.
So what are plants thinking when they look at us? Do they envy us, wish they could grow legs and uproot themselves from where they’ve grown and walk the Earth as free creatures? Or do they thank their lucky stars that their lives are simply to grow, flower, set their seed and then curl back up into the Earth, job done?
I’m guessing we’ll never know what, or if, plants are thinking at all. But if I was to take a guess, I think they are just hoping that someone, or something, will notice them. That someone will give them that second look they crave, admire their pretty bloom and miss it once it’s gone. I don’t think we are that different as a species.
Plant or human, we all end up in the same place after all.
