Existential Errands: Everyday Moments Through a Philosophical Lens

A single Calathea plant can move its leaves up and down twice a day, following a rhythm that has nothing to do with the sun. Whoa. Like it’s breathing? Exactly. It’s called nyctinasty. And it’s this constant, silent movement happening in the corner of your room. Last week we talked about the weirdly profound stillness of waiting in line, and I think this is... um, the opposite. It’s the philosophy of watching something live, right in front of you, on its own terms. Okay, I'm with you. So this isn't just about not killing your ficus. No, it’s about what the ficus does to you.

I bought a fiddle-leaf fig about a year ago. You know the ones — big, waxy leaves, looks like it belongs in an architecture magazine. Oh, the drama queens of the plant world. I've heard the stories. Total drama queen. And I went into it with this... this sense of mission. I read all the blogs. I got the moisture meter, the special fertilizer, the grow light. I had a watering schedule on my calendar. It wasn't a plant; it was a project. And every morning, the first thing I'd do is inspect it. Inspect it? Like, for what? For... failure. A brown spot.

A single yellowing leaf. Any sign that I was not doing a good enough job. I was so focused on the outcome — this perfect, static, green sculpture — that I completely missed the point. Which was what? Just... to have a plant? I think it was to care for something. But my version of caring was just a form of control. You know? It was about me proving I could keep this difficult thing alive. It wasn't about the plant at all. It was about my ego. That feels... incredibly familiar. Not just with plants, but with, like, anything. A job, a relationship.

This idea that if you just do all the steps right, you're entitled to a specific result. Exactly. And nature just does not work that way. One day, I went on a trip for four days. I asked my neighbor to water it exactly once, with a pre-measured amount of water. I came back, and three of the bottom leaves were just... gone. Dropped on the floor. Oh no. And I felt this surge of, like, genuine anger. At the plant! How could it do this to me after everything I'd done for it? It was absurd. I was mad at a tree in a pot for being a tree in a pot. Right.

Because it wasn't following the rules of your project plan. It wasn't. And that was the moment it sort of... broke for me. I stood there, looking at this plant I had tried so hard to manage, and I realized I hadn't enjoyed a single day of it. It was just a source of low-grade anxiety in my living room. So what did you do? Did you just give up on it? I did something weirder. I stopped. I threw away my schedule. I stopped the daily inspections. I decided I would just... look at it. And if the soil felt dry, I'd water it. If it looked like it needed sun, I'd move it.

I started reacting to it instead of acting upon it. You started treating it like a living thing instead of an object to be perfected. Yes! And the craziest part? It started to get better. It put out a new leaf. A small one, but it was there. And I felt this... quiet satisfaction that was so different from the stressful pride I was chasing before. It wasn't "I succeeded." It was, "Oh, look. Life." Hmm. It’s like you had to give up control to actually, uh, gain any kind of positive relationship with it. You had to accept that its survival wasn't entirely up to you.

Right. And that the goal isn't a perfect, unchanging plant. The goal is the daily practice of paying attention. Of caring without the expectation of reward. It’s a tiny, potted lesson in letting go. So much of what we call "care" is really about managing our own anxiety about loss. But the plant doesn't care about your anxiety. It just cares about water and light. It just cares about being. And maybe, I don't know, maybe the whole point of having them in our homes is to remind us how to do the same. To just... be. Even when a leaf turns brown.

Especially when a leaf turns brown. That’s part of it, too. It’s not a failure. It's just... Tuesday. Yeah. It’s just Tuesday. So, what does it mean to love something you can't control? I think my fiddle-leaf fig is teaching me that, one leaf at a time.