Everyone's taking artsy pictures of their home potted plants, having cute plant diaries for plant growths on instagram, building a community for edible gardens and showing off their harvests, collecting special varieties or having a portfolio for their architectural/landscape designs or even sharing the work of others; everything that are very relevant to themselves as a result. I think it's great. I do have one issue on my mind though: If it is so nice, why did so many young people leave the industry in Singapore and turn them into small hobbies instead? I personally feel that being a fast paced country, we are becoming too results oriented we forgot (or can't care) about the importance of the process. When we start doing it on our own and realize that it is harder than what we expected, we also tend to quit halfway. IMO, result oriented + career = mostly money driven. Next in line is if the job gives you a "good life". So plants + money = good life ma. Cos plants are deemed as luxurious items here.
Notice i used the word feel because not everyone can agree with me, and what is logical to me may not be logical to you. I also know that this may not be the only reason why, and there are many complications involved - which i have actually tried asking on my Reddit post.
The previous generation may have gone through a different cycle of grind which played a part in influencing our mindset of being result oriented. I mean, they had no choice. We had to grow as a country. But by now i would like to believe we are quite taught about that and we are about to enter a new era. I don't know if era is a strong word - but an era that would require a balance of both results and process. An era where kids may not know what hardship was, simply because they have never really seen it on their own. Why must we not be extremely result oriented? Why must we balance if being result oriented is good for the economy or ourselves? For a simple reason actually - when we don't have a drive/motivation/passion to hold on to, we all get burnout one day.
(I'm not saying through posting photos and the influencing culture alone i assume the entire generation is affected by it and want to start a riot uh. I'm just using my feelings & awareness to judge things and sharing my thoughts today. Maybe with some statistics i would make sense but i'm lazy la. But i know you know i'm not baseless.)
Anyway, while looking at this angle, I feel that when we pay hard attention to just aesthetics or the "looks of it", more often than not we tend to ask these questions: "OMG how did you do it?", "Wow, your plant looks luscious, unlike mine!", "This is beautiful to look at!". Afterall, it could be something unfamiliar to ourselves. Sometimes it's healthy, sometimes it's like appreciating the looks of a celebrity and asking how come they are so naturally gorgeous without knowing that they put in a lot of effort to maintain their figure and image and these did not happen "overnight". Sometimes when we look at other people's success, we even give up on ours. Of course, this does not only apply to horti stuff.
Don't get me wrong, content appreciating for its aesthetic purposes is definitely something we should be doing. We all are. But because the people that we are "posting for" are the future generation of kids who will look at these as an impression and work that we have created, on top of the beautiful pictures (which should be by default soon(?)), i feel that we should make use of the opportunity to emphasize on the process of doing as a learning point too. So what i'm trying to say is aesthetics appreciation for its content purposes is important too. Did I make sense? LOL.
You guys asked me how do i even sustain my passion and find meaning into what i'm doing right? I think by asking and answering questions helps to relate. Honestly many of the answers provide different goals to different people. Be it for economical value, for the love of plants, for the people who are suffering under the hot sun or simply feeding ourselves.
With relevance to plants, when I look at them photos, they don't only show me how beautiful the end product is. They reflect the work that we have to go through to obtain these results. My thoughts are wired to identify the progressive journey and it makes me wonder how did these things even happen in the first place? The hard labours, the efforts, the thoughts put into it. I think it's wonderful to ponder at. When special unique varieties were created, do people know how were they bred, why, and for whom? When edibles are harvested, how long did it take for this to happen? What were the problems they met before having such results? When a garden is created, what was the thought process? What were the considerations made?
I think the message that i want to put across in this post is that i feel that the younger people (including myself) tend to give up on the grinding and want instant results just because these "pictures" have been influencing our mindsets. I think and feel it is important to understand the process in order to sustain interests and hopefully foster a passion and spread positivity among the community. Be it for plants or life in general. So if you've seen something you like but can't find a reason to stay, perhaps you can ask yourself questions and take some action on it. Maybe it's about time.
Thanks for reading! Haha.