What do you consider a weed?

I don’t know what bothers me about knowing that this pretty little Prairie Sunflower is a weed. I think it makes me feel hopeless I guess, like nothing is ever good enough. I mean, look at this organism! It’s beautiful. Its leaves can be ground into a salve to make your owies feel better, and its seeds can nourish your belly. It is highly successful on a competitive biological scale, it is REALLY BEAUTIFUL and still it is classified as a weed. A weed! I was at the hardware store about 3 days ago and I saw an herbicide, its label said it was effective against Prairie Sunflowers.

What differentiates this from something you would plant in your garden?

I guess just the ability to be overly competitive is negative. But why? This plant is able to outcompete its neighbors, it provides benefits to the creatures in its habitat, and it is… well… really pretty. Why don’t I have a nice little Prairie Sunflower stand in my garden? I think humans strive to be successful and beautiful and beneficial, and honestly I can’t think of much else. I think we all want to be seen as useful and wanted. So why give this poor Prairie Sunflower such a hard time?

I don’t really know how to tie this thought together other than to tell you that maybe you should contemplate what you think is beautiful, and why you seem to do so; because just owning this image and looking at it has made me really think about what I value. The Dandelion growing between your sidewalk can fix nitrogen by itself because it has spent literally millions of years cultivating a symbiosis with highly specialized bacteria resulting in a game changing advantage, but when they pop up in your grass you say eew and spray them to death. Everything has value and with enough introspection, you can see it.

I think that the Prairie Sunflower does not think that it is a weed, I think that the Prairie Sunflower thinks that it has value. I don’t think that the Prairie Sunflower cares that people think it is a weed, I think that it wants to be alive as much as an orchid.

I think that you should see your own value. I think that you should not care if other people see you as lesser, you are specialized and wonderful.