Sum total of parts; the ‘inside’ doesn’t matter (alone)

The inside of this dry.

There is not a drop of juice.

It’s plump and firm from the outside in,

but it is a sorry excuse.

This does not mean, that it’s not a fruit.

Of that, I’m fairly certain.

For if our essence was all that mattered,

then the show is over; close the curtains.

We should look at each holistically.

Folk must discover what they’re consuming.

Don’t let all the attributes blend into one,

or that will be love’s undoing.

growing your own food isn’t poverty tourism (or too bourgeois)

I don’t know how long humans have been growing vegetables. I gut instinct tells me that we always have, as long as we’ve been homo sapiens anyway. To be honest, this sounds like one of these things that has perhaps been used to taxonomise us under the homo sapiens sub-heading; “must commit to agriculture as a means of sustenance”-, or something to that affect. How-ever and why-ever we started doing it, all I can say is that I’m getting giddy with a green thumb of my own. I’m quite excited for this summer. 

But how? Why? What could I possibly be doing this summer horticulturally? Well, for one I am growing fruits and vegetables, and not just flowers. I think there is an element of minimalism to this. Gritty, hardworking, something-for-something-like practicality. I like fresh flowers for aesthetic and fragantful purposes but when facing the option of growing something, I feel like it should be something I can eat. It’s not that I’m needing to cut down of expenses (I certainly should be) or that I just love the taste of home-grown foods, as if there is something in the fertilizer which just makes it exquisite. 

No, I’m doing it for fun. At the same time though, it just feels like it would be fun to also make something I can eat or give away. I’m almost engaged in actively dressing up as a yeoman from a bygone age and just vacationing in the lifestyle. I’m just like Lucy Worsley, but without making insurability a staple of my whole personality. All this discussion doesn’t just bring memories and comparisons to incredibly annoying, license-fee-wasting broadcasters of banality; it also brings up memories of Jarvis Cocker’s selectively affluent girl from Greece in Common People, and poverty porn and tourism which seems incredibly rife in the modern day. 

I wonder if I am just another one of these tourists. I doubt it. What would it need for one to be a poverty tourist? Or someone who dabbles and delights in doing things al thrift-sco for a change, once in a while? And as the center point to all of these questions, what is necessarily wrong about this? 

It seems to me best to answer the question starting with this big one at the center. The issue with poverty tourism seems to be that it has an overall dulling effect on how we see poverty. Despite all of the fuss for more engagement and understanding with those in society who most need our help, the actual consequences of this can be grave for our morality, particularly when we are doing this at our own dree will and choosing. 

Can you ever really feel discomfort if you know you can withdraw yourselves from it? I don’t want to draw too much of a comparison, but if you put your hand over a burning candle, the pain sensors will trigger a response which means you’ll instinctively move it away from danger. It could be easy to see that it would be quite difficult to subject oneself to unnecessary suffering when they are determined not to do so. 

From what I’ve just said then, I’m certainly not engaging in poverty tourism. I’m not trying to suffer or do something because I interpret it as a “poor” thing to do. I’m doing it from a genuine sense of enjoyment. Excitement at knowing I can grow something which I can eat, almost as if I am giving back to the planet. To an extent I am giving back, as I am not taking. I have a strange feeling that by doing this myself, giving life to a plant which doesn’t exist yet, and which I can take out again is a completely neutral, and clean. Actually, it’s a gain for the planet – more pollination, vegetation and oxygenation than there was without me doing it. 

It’ll be a good summer once I’ve started and harvested. It’s a new hobby for sure, and I hope it lasts and gives me the satisfaction I’m hoping for.