I bought a plant last Tuesday. It was an impulse purchase, driven by the sudden, biological conviction that my apartment was too "dead" and that the solution was to bring in a living organism that cannot speak, move, or tell me what it wants. I named him "Ferdinand."  

He is a Fiddle Leaf Fig, which is the botanical equivalent of a sick Victorian child with a weak constitution. However, in the shop, Ferdinand looked majestic. He was green, glossy, and radiated a calm, photosynthetic confidence. I brought him home. I placed him in a "bright, indirect light" spot, as instructed.  

Two days later, Ferdinand dropped a leaf. He didn't just shed it. He threw it. It landed on the floor with a dry, accusatory crack. I stared at the bare branch. I felt a knot of anxiety tighten in my chest. I wasn't looking at a biological process. I was looking at a sulk. I asked him, out loud, "What is wrong? Is it the soil? Is it the tap water? Do you hate the rug?"  

Ferdinand said nothing. He simply stood there, aggressively losing his will to live, demanding that I interpret his silence.

This is a deeply comforting theory. It allows me to look at my bedside table not as a pile of books, but as a "curated research tool for humility." I am not lazy; I am simply cultivating a profound relationship with the Unknown.

Ruskin and the Sadness of Leaves 

There is a term for what I was doing, coined by the Victorian art critic John Ruskin. He called it The Pathetic Fallacy.  

Ruskin was criticising poets who attributed human emotions to nature, describing the sea as "cruel" or the sky as "weeping." He argued that nature does not have feelings; we have feelings, and we project them onto the landscape. The storm isn't angry. The flower isn't lonely. They are just physics and biology doing their thing.  

Ruskin would have had a field day with my relationship with Ferdinand. I do not treat this plant as a collection of cells requiring nitrogen and photons. I treat him as a moody roommate. When his leaves droop, I don't think "I underwatered it”, I think, "He is depressed. I have failed to provide a stimulating environment."  

I project a complex inner life onto a stick of wood.

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Sontag and the Trap of Meaning 

But my problem isn't just projection; it's over-analysis. I realised I needed to listen to Susan Sontag. In her famous essay Against Interpretation, Sontag argued that we have a terrible habit of destroying art (and life) by trying to find its "meaning" instead of experiencing its reality.  

She wrote, "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art." Basically: Stop thinking. Start feeling.  

I am doing the exact opposite with Ferdinand. I am treating him like a text to be decoded. I am looking for the "subtext" of his brown spots. I am analysing the "metaphor" of his drooping posture. Sontag would tell me to stop it. She would say, "Cut back the content so that we can see the thing at all."  

Ferdinand is not a metaphor for my nurturing abilities. He is not a symbol of my domestic success. He is a green thing. He is chlorophyll and cellulose. My anxiety comes from the fact that I am trying to have an intellectual conversation with a vegetable when I should just be looking at it. I need to stop asking "What does this mean?" and start asking "Is this soil dry?" 

The Myth of the "Green Thumb" 

We talk about people having a "green thumb" as if it were a magical gift, a Disney princess's ability to communicate with the forest. In reality, a "green thumb" is just the ability to ignore the Pathetic Fallacy.  

People who are good at plants observe them. They see a yellow leaf and think, "Nitrogen deficiency." They don't think, "Oh no, he's crying."  

I, however, operate entirely on vibes. I water Ferdinand not when the soil is dry, but when I feel like I would like a drink. I move him to a sunny spot because I feel cold, even though he is a tropical understory plant that hates direct sunlight. I am loving him to death.  

This is the dark side of Biophilia, our innate love of nature. We love nature so much that we want it to be like us. We want the plant to be a pet. We want it to have a personality. But the plant just wants to photosynthesise in peace, without a human hovering over it whispering, "Are you happy?" 

The Cat vs. The Jungle 

I am the neurotic parent projecting emotions onto the plant; my cat is the ruthless realist that Ruskin would deeply appreciate. She does not suffer from the Pathetic Fallacy. She does not see Ferdinand as a moody friend. She sees him as: 

She walked up to Ferdinand while I was agonising over a brown spot. She sniffed the pot. She looked at the drooping leaf. And then she bit it. She crunched the tip of the leaf with the casual indifference of a creature who knows exactly where she stands in the food chain.  

I cried, "Don't eat him! He's sad!" She looked at me. Her expression was clear: "It is a leaf. It is crunchy. Get a grip."

She understands nature better than I do. Nature is not about empathy but about survival for her. The plant grows, the cat eats the plant, the plant dies, and the compost grows a new plant. There is no drama in her world. There is only texture and taste. 

The Circle of Life (and Its Mould Risks) 

I picked up the fallen, half-chewed leaf. It felt wrong to throw it in the bin. It felt like erasing history. I decided to do something poetic. I would return it to the source.  

"Ashes to ashes," I whispered, placing the dead leaf gently back onto the soil in Ferdinand’s pot. It looked right. A closed loop. The fallen nourish the living. Nature healing itself in my living room. I felt a brief moment of Zen satisfaction.  

And then, I made the mistake of reading a post about this serene moment on Reddit. The post said: "You shouldn`t put decaying matter on topsoil as it attracts fungus and promotes root rot. If you do so, you are basically inviting a pestilence." I stared at the phone. I looked at the leaf; it was lying peacefully on the dirt. I looked at Ferdinand, who seemed to be bracing himself for a fungal invasion.  

I realised then that the problem in my life is not the plant. It is not the cat. It is not the leaf. The problem is that I am not accepting simple biology facts. My every simple, ignorant bliss of plant ownership is attacked with "facts" and "biology."  

I reached into the pot and took the leaf back out. I have decided to read less. I need posts that know less. I need people who will look at a rotting leaf and say, "Poor Ferdinand" with a pitiful tone.

So here I am. I am standing in the middle of the room, holding a fallen, half-chewed, potentially bio-hazardous leaf that cannot go in the bin or the pot.  

I don't know what to do with it. So I just put it on the bookshelf. It’s not clutter. Now, it’s an installation. 

See you next time. Keep watering (only when the soil is dry), 

Asena