We Blossom in Openness

Will it rain today?  I’ve checked several different sources.  One source (Yahoo News) says we have a 100% chance of rain today. I have often wondered about what we mean when we use that phrase, “a one-hundred-percent chance!” Another source (Bing) says we will have a 10% chance of rain today!  Which forecast is right?  Wait a minute. I’ll check yet another source.  AccuWeather says it will not rain today, but we can expect “considerable cloudiness.”  I guess weather reports can be as different and varied as any other news report.  If you want a day without rain, you simply search the various sources until you come up with a forecast that says it isn’t going to rain.  If you want news that satisfies your “taste,” or your “social/political leaning” try CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the BBC or NPR.  You’ll find it “raining up a storm” on some of these cable networks, while on others you’ll hear “the sun is shining” and it will continue to shine for days to come.

The azalea plant tucked in the shade and shadow of the boxwood in my backyard and the azalea located in a more open area, bespeaks of this dilemma in weather forecasting and in reporting the news.  The azalea planted in the deeper shade of the boxwood has blossomed only partially, while the azalea in the more open area is in full bloom.  If you look closely at the pink azalea, you can see that it is covered with promise, literally smothered in buds awaiting blossoming.  If it only had more “openness” it would be in full bloom rather than in partial bloom.

This “openness” is essential to getting all the buds of the weather forecast or all the buds of the daily news to blossom together.  Azaleas in covered-up, closed, shadowed areas tend to bloom in sporadic fashion.  If given access to more openness the azalea blossoms will unfold together.  “A mind is like a parachute,” according to Frank Zappa.  “It doesn’t work if it is not open” or to continue my analogy, the mind will not blossom fully and with all its potential beauty without openness.

Keeping an open mind about anything is to blossom more fully as a person because you push aside the shadows, the shade, the varied influences and opinions surrounding whatever the issue.  Openness means to give access, to clear away, and to provide an  unhindered, unobstructed view of the subject.   It seems almost a natural tendency for us to be lazy in this regard.  Rather than doing the hard work of “thinking” we allow some cable network, newspaper, party, or philosophy do our thinking for us.  We’ll never fully blossom that way.  Intellectual openness is necessary for us to blossom fully as human beings.  We must move into openness, escaping the shadows, the shade, and the influences all around us, and do our own thinking.