Green

Green with envy.
Grass is always greener.
Moving onto greener pastures.

Why is it that this color represents so much? Green can symbolize anything from luck to money to envy to nature. I've just been kind of surrounded by phrases such as the ones previously mentioned lately. My best friend in the whole world, Alli, is moving on to greener pastures Monday. Technically, it's far less "green" since Richmond has many more trees and shrubbery than the Windy City.

Also, I was contemplating the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side. Are we so spoiled as a society that what we want isn't enough? Once we get it, we want the opposite. A single teenage girl desperately wants a boyfriend. Until she gets one. And then after a few months she envies (green with envy) her single girl friends. Nothing is ever enough. We always want more. Or maybe everyone just likes complaining. The doctor who has worked his whole life to become great at what he does only to grunt about the long hours and less-than-stellar patients. The little boy who wants a puppy more than anything in the world, but neglects it after a new toy has caught his interest.

Why is it that people are this way? As a scholar of the sciences, I am fascinated by this. How is this evolutionarily advantageous? All I can think is that it's a ploy for us to get sick of each other and create a more genetically diverse society by getting sick of sexual partners. But I digress...

Maybe we should think more about what we want and don't want. Why do we want these things? What's so much better about this greener pasture? Why do you envy someone who probably is just as envious of you? How come having everything still isn't enough? Why do we all want more?

The point is, we will all continue to act the way we have as a race until something significant happens like an ice age, but maybe we should use our higher knowledge to examine why and how we think this way.



I don't have a smart way of ending this post, and it's really kind of just become a series of random thoughts that have popped in my head, but I'm trying not to just write thoughts and then delete them. I'll think of it as a half-year resolution. Happy 2010 1/2!