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The old story time and again. Apparently we are all the same…right? Apparently we are all raised the same by the same parents, even if we are from a multi sibling household right? But you all have the same diagnosis according to DSM5? But we went to the same school? We lived on the same street…and yet

These three pumpkins were carved a few days before Halloween by one of my neighbours and put out on the fence, as a symbol of the festival to come. All three remained outside exposed to the same elements for the same amount of time. And yet…when you observe them side by side a different image emerges. Yes, they may have a different mass because of their size, but the conditions are the same. Of course I can hear the people from the back saying “but they all have different carvings, of course they will be decaying at a different rate. Look at how much of the inside this pumpkin has exposed…look at hos much the other pumpkin has exposed. Surely the properties are not the same?”” And yes that indeed is true…but what I do know is that the exposure is the same, so why is it that one survives more than the other? What made one collapse already whilst the other two continued to maintain their integrity?

Aren’t these interesting questions to ponder?

What makes some of us be resilient, even if we seemingly went through the same situations? Whilst others collapse under the weight of their own expereince?

What leads to some of us maintain our integrity, despite the onslaught of adverse events whilst others at the sight of the smallest trouble implode?

What is it about our own structure, that gives us the strength that is needed to maintain ourselves? Whilst others, despite having abundance from every angle seem to just decay from whithin?

What is it about the conditions within and outside that the outcome is so different?

But of course these are just pumpkins, and by now they all disappeared off the fence, so why do they matter? Their existence was brief, their impact even smaller still…and yet took a lot of energy to grow them… the seed needed to know what it needed to do in the darkness of the soil to find its way out into the sun…the fledgling sprout needed to fight the weeds, the parasites, the predators to become an established plant…it had to fight for water, nutrients and light every day to sprout leaves and then flower…it had no purpose…nobody told the plant what it will be after it became fruit…nobody sat there singing to it teaching it about being a good plant and not overshadow the other plants….nobody said “when you are older…tell me what you are dream of becoming?!”…nobody ngged it to hurry up and grow already because others are waiting for it….nobody said you are worthless because you are small and believed it about itself…and one day the farmer came and plucked it off its roots put it in a box took it away from its mother plant and exposed it to new conditions…some people must have passed it and said “you are not what i am looking for”…the pumpkin did not mind, it had not thought…it just existed…and then …my neighbour bought 3…the pumpkin still had no concept of what its purpose was or understood that it would be cut, and bruised and hollowed and bruised some more…or that it will be exposed to the elements again…hollowed out and exposed raw…its shell and armour all opened up…it just continued existing….and then Halloween came, and no children came…and no trick or treating was done at that door…it was raining…and it still didn’t care….and then the neighbour removed it because the pumpkin time is passed…and instead of being food and nutritious to another body…it decayed under the rain, the Sun, the darkness the wind…the very conditions that before it was nourishing, but now it led to its disintegration…..

So I ask you….is it you? Or the conditions?

Every picture has a story and a meaning… what does this image evoke in you?!