The Grass is Greener When You’re Blind

The most frustrating part is that I never even noticed the grass before all of this. From what I was told, it was even more patchy last season with a similar quantity of weeds and clovers.

But last year I just saw grass. I was blind in a way. I had eyes, but I could not see.

And now I can. I can tell you every grassless patch in the whole garden, every inadequacy, the status of the most recent growth and my hopes and dreams for the Garden that can be.

And every morning when I go out, hose in hand, my eyes gravitate to those sloshes of mud, those areas of clovers

In a way there is an “ignorance is bliss” strand to this story. Was I not more content when I knew nothing of grass?

But I think we can all agree that I was not a more compassionate man then. Not when I was blind to the grass, to its needs and its limitations.

Nor when I am blind to the world around me-when I live in a cocoon of affluence, stunningly ignorant of the struggle that rages on around me.

More content that way sure, but it seems that being content is not all that I aspire towards.

The Buddhist would say to behold the grass with complete equanimity. They would say that I need notice that “there is no good or bad outcome for my grass, only what is.”

But this runs contrary to the way that us humans operate. We are cursed to differentiate Good from Bad, to identify a challenge and set out to solve it. We all have goals and objectives in life, whether they be self serving or otherwise, as simple inane as gardening or as grandiose as global conquest. In all cases, our discomfort with the status quo is precisely that which motivates us to leave our house each morning, to plant our seeds and water our fields with the necessary maniac consistency.

A Jew is not commanded to abandon this instinct towards Good and Bad but rather to direct it.

The curse and blessing of Genesis is that he is commanded to develop a finely attuned sensitivity to suffering around him. To develop eyes that can see all those who are hurting, those who are hungry, sad, lost and lonely.

To leave his house each morning and see his tattered lawn and his tattered world. A world in crisis. To feel the screams of pain of others as if they were his own. To have goals for this world and aspirations for the Garden he can build.

To go out every day and fertilize, and plant, and water. To see growth, celebrate and to find the next muddy patch.