Why Spreading Good is a Good Thing

Surprise! It’s one of the long-mooted, irregular Good Things! Irregular in frequency, but hopefully not in quality.

Let’s talk gardening.

Our backyard is a bit of a hodge podge of greenery. In one corner is a fig tree, beautiful and amazing and graced with many figs. In another corner is a fejioa tree, proud and largely picked over by some hungry and vibrant rosellas. And in the middle is a bustling pomegranate tree, which really has very little to say for itself, but does produce a good amount of fruit. Behind that tree, specifically between the pomegranate tree and an incredibly-large olive tree — large tree, normal-sized olives — is an empty patch of ground. Or, at least it was.

Because, you see, recently, a scattering of weeds started popping up on the empty patch and me, being the avid lawn mower that I am, decided that the most appropriate thing to do would be to mow over them. Weed problem solved, right?

Wrong. Because now there are even more things growing in the once-empty patch.

Offhandedly, I mentioned this to my mother-in-law and, in a kind-of lightbulb moment, she observed that the reason the patch was growing more, is likely because I’m mowing it more. Presumably because random assortment of seeds, grass and, well, everything else, that get picked up by the mower are sometimes unintentionally distributed across the ground it mows. The result is that things start to grow.

And this idea, told ad-hoc, somehow found a foothold in my mind.

It got me thinking that maybe this is all a bit bigger than a few blades of grass. That maybe, this echoes elsewhere. And just maybe, for example, if we spread a little kindness where there is none, we might find it starts growing there on its own. Of course, the flip side, if we spread a little anger, maybe it will grow too.

Because, this isn’t really about grass, it’s about how we choose to act. And, to riff a little on the great Two Wolves fable, what we choose to share will grow beyond us and seed the actions of others. Because when we see good, we often want to do good ourselves. And when we see bad, well, maybe we feel like we have been given permission.

In the end, the grass is just the start. The most important thing here is what we choose to spread and where. And that, is why Spreading Good is a very Good Thing.

• What you choose to spread may grow, the good and the bad.

• The Two Wolves fable is very worth your time.

• Some things really are just about gardening. More on that after the squiggle.

Green it, just green it

Our house often feels like a place of mystery. Like a carnival fun house where you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. And this is abundantly true when it comes to our indoor plants. Because, walking around the house, I have more than a few times had to look closely to work out if I’m admiring a lush green Monstera deliciosa, or a piece of painted green plastic.

But, you know what? It’s actually kind of glorious. Because whether the plant comes from the ground or from an industrial chemical compound, the joy of being surrounded by green feels similar. It’s like being in nature, if nature was made enmasse in a factory somewhere. And the best part, unlike the daily life and death battle faced by all who have real indoor plants, with a fake plant, all you have to do is dust.

So, looking for some greenish joy but not sure you can keep it alive long enough to enjoy it? Maybe plastic green is your new best friend.

You can even water it; just make sure you’ve got a towel handy.

Postscript

Gosh, it’s fun and strange to be back in the Good Thing drivers seat. I was approached at a party a few months ago and, after some small talk, the person said to me, ‘So when are the irregular Good Things coming?’. And I didn’t know what to say. They’re irregular, after all, but I had so much else going on that any ideas I had were just sitting unattended in a pile.

There are more hanging there, and when I get to them, maybe they will grow into more Good Things. I guess what I’m saying is, keeping regular is good, but irregular is the future for now.

Post-postscript

I played with a lot of titles for this one. The Good Thing idea came to me fairly quickly, and the writing was even faster (although the edit took foreeeever), but the title kept eluding me. It turns out that ‘spreading seed’ can have a lot packed into it, and not all of it is safe for work. So ‘Spreading Good’ became the best of them.

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