On the great purge, house plants, and enduring creatures.

2018-10-20 @Lifestyle

Around the year 2009 I found myself aggressively simplifying, eliminating and reorganizing - mostly the first two, upon which little remained to reorganize. I call this period the great purge. If the nomenclature inspires the horror genre, you could not be more mistaken.

This was a peaceful and cleansing period. This was the initiating point when I consciously acknowledged minimalism as the necessary survival doctrine and began to construe the superfluous element as plain, unsavory vice.

My workspace soon became nearly empty. I didn’t want as much as a visible scrap of paper that didn’t have immediate use. Nothing of unnecessary writing utensils, stress balls, extra notebooks, toys, food-takeout boxes.

The few objects that remained, many to be further eradicated with time, I positioned at perfectly measured 90-degree angles: the laptop, the monitor, the folder organizer for the handful of frequently accessed folders, a stack of books for which I found no other immediate home and later to become the means to elevate my keyboard for an improvised standing setup.

Cleaning the dust became a two-minute ordeal. I felt certain ease at being able to take deep breaths. The ample space enabled the ease of sitting atop the desk in numerous contortions.

Oddly enough, I spared a gigantic 12' x 8' inch simple-function calculator, buttons spacious enough to accommodate a portly cat paw.

I also cultivated a couple of plants to contrast the otherwise industrial drudgery, thirsting for a tiny specimen of nature at an arm’s reach.

The little I knew of house plants, I settled on a couple of low-maintenance species: the hard to kill plants you water on a rare occasion but otherwise forget about.

The first, Sansevieria Trifasciata, nicknamed the snake plant, featured those vertical, rigid swordlike blades resembling a contour of a snake, a creature for which I always felt strange sympathy. The plant became a formidable substitute for the never realized domesticated reptile.

The other, the bamboo plant (Dracaena Sanderiana), beyond the occasional watering, took similar pride in self-reliance. Additionally it was said to elevate the energy of the surroundings. I don’t know if in direct consequence of the bamboo or other latent factors, but the energy did improve in the times to come.

The bamboo inspired another somewhat unusual phenomenon. I felt an increasing urge to eat the leaves, this causing me some unease. I consume plants all the time, but the difference between a plant of anonymous origin and my office companion felt considerable. Having consulted a colleague on the matter, it was suggested I include more green leaves in my diet. Following the advice, the burden eventually lessened.

I already enjoyed vegetables in my nutrition. But from that point I began to consider a diet of even greater emphasis on dark green vegetables not only an absolute necessity, but rich in taste. For those of you struggling to eat sufficient greens, perhaps a bamboo plant might trigger the right course.

I hold particular respect for plants (and beings in general) that can endure severity. Beyond the acquired plants, I greatly admire the succulents (ie, cacti), molded for survival in desert conditions. It has now come to my attention that the spider plant actually belongs to the agave family of succulents.

Agave … The life source of the Mexican spirits, tequila and mescal. I spent a month in Oaxaca, Mexico, the nucleus of mescal production, on the simple basis of being surrounded by succulents and this delightful brewery. Is that an odd premise for choosing a month-long travel destination, being a person who scarcely consumes alcohol and rarely embarks on nature hikes?

In some traditional settings, Mescal is served with a worm inside the glass. But I avoided traditional settings and unsure of the roots behind the ceremony. A dead worm presumably, who can be sure of anything in this mysterious world? If in a prison camp one day with few means of survival, I might consider a worm diet, should a bottle of Mescal happen to roll within my grasp.

Alternatively, you might prefer a scorpion on the opposite rim of your glass. Some exotic regions of the world have popularized this audacious consumption method. To be clear, and I have been asked to clarify the point, I speak of a living scorpion intently gazing at you in contemplation whether it makes sense to poke an eye or two as you empty your drink. In the last such conversation I managed to confuse a scorpion for a crab, the prospect seemingly remote, yet unable to recollect the word scorpion.

Among tribes laudable for their enduring capacity are the Freemen, of the Arrakis planet Frank Herbert chronicled. The Freemen mastered the desert environment like no other people. Consider the bulky distillation suits worn to recycle their bodily fluids, all the while stealthily ferreting around the sands.

The quickest and the deadliest assassins in the known universe, Freemen don’t soak worms in beverages. Freemen saddle their worms for transport. Bigger worms. Menacing sand worms as extensive in length as a moderately sized village. The Freemen also consider water as sacred, belonging to the people rather than the individual. They extract all water from their dead before burial. And those bluish eyes without pupils from constant exposure to a native, chemically addicting mineral: extremist groups have their peculiarities.

Following an upward San Francisco slope one day, I discovered a patch of small ten to fifteen centimeter tall succulents planted in front of an art store. The street showed no other visible evidence of exotic plant life, the growth entirely homogeneous. The tiny creatures must have felt as alien as a kitten in a hog pen. But they persevered as a succulent must. I wonder what became of them since?

Questions, comments? Connect.