Weed

I see it every day on my way to university. My path leads me along a winding path disappearing amid fields and meadows dotted with golden stars and dandelions. It's strange that such a place could be found in the very center of the city...

And yet, among the rows of villas belonging to the nouveau riche yoopies, a small, approximately hundred-year-old brick house stands out. It stands out perhaps only for its modesty, lack of a fence, the grayness of the old plaster, the low height of the walls, and the flat roof. As a first-year student, I passed it indifferently. For a moment, it even seemed uninhabited, but I never gave it a second thought.

Until I saw its occupant. An old man, gray-haired but upright, with his head bowed and a strange sadness in his eyes awkwardly concealed behind the thick lenses of his glasses, he sometimes strolled along the path, never venturing out into the city or approaching a busy street. He lived only for himself, occasionally singing under his breath some nostalgic songs from about sixty years ago. Next to the house, you'll find a small plot of land, wrested from the meadow and the asphalt. It's not even a quarter of an acre, but there's something compelling about it. Always meticulously plowed and sown, it was like a garden plot, perfectly organized, with everything a human hand could plant in the ground. From a distance, you can't even see this carefully cultivated patch of land, surrounded on all sides by green meadows.

One spring day, I saw an old man wading through the grass on his knees, carefully pulling out all the dandelions from around his small homeland. The old man spent three days on all fours until the land within a 50-meter radius of his garden was completely devoid of dandelions. His hands plucked every yellow flower in the area, trying to prevent the dandelions, finally transformed into dandelions, from spreading as weeds across his field. It was a Sisyphean task, for each day a different yellow star flashed anew among the blades of lesser grass. The old man's hands, covered with earth and the green of dead weeds, slowly grew hard and decrepit, yet he carried out his work with astonishing tenacity and meticulousness. The pile of plucked yellow flowers, drying in the spring sun, grew larger day by day.

On the fourth day, passing by and, as usual, seeing him on his knees, I asked if it wouldn't be better to use a scythe and end his problem once and for all. He looked at me with that sad look of his and after a moment replied,

"Grass is like people; not everything is a weed... Kill the evil, but don't let the good suffer. Besides, the meadow isn't my property. I only cultivate my garden...

And that's what life is all about, I guess. Never be a weed, cultivate your own garden, and live the best life you can... Was it that hard?"