the unpaved road

A conversation with a friend of mine this morning had me articulate a thought which helped make it solid for me (rather than the background of what I know and unconsciously operate on).

She said that flowers don't grow on paved roads , which is of course one of those classic cliches which has a central nugget of truth.

The problem as I see it is that flowers are  the seeding bodies of plants and from seeds new plants grow, external to the soil. So a flower grows from a plant, which in turn grew from a seed and used the soil to do that.

If the mind is the ground, then for the mind to grow, the idea of the seed needs to be copied into the mind and by the work of the mind the mind grows the flowers.

So its an active thing (requiring work and thought power) unlike the observance of the flowers.

Its even a little more work than that because YOU have to scan the idea into your mind, I can't actually plant it there.

So its a bit like the baby bird squeaking from the nest ... the parents can vomit up food in its belly for it, but eventually it will have to go feed itself. It needs to learn to feed itself and learn to identify what is food even.

The little cliche holds value but only if we think about it.

I see many people who quote cliches but seem to never have thought about them. I guess they're like directions painted onto the road ... things for others who travel that road can see and use to navigate, but the road never knows what's blocking the sunlight.