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You’ve got an apple tree.
Make apple sauce. Make apple pie. Apple juice. Apple butter. Apple tarts. Apple wine...
Let the apples fall from the tree and rot on the ground.
Either way, Apple Tree gives no fucks.
It blooms and produces, drops its fruit, and goes through this cycle year after year whether anyone sees it or not.
Apple Tree pushes out some of the most beautiful blossoms you have ever seen...various shades of pink and white, sometimes even touches of violet. The scent is one of the most heavenly things I’ve ever smelled. Especially on a late spring morning, coming in my bedroom window.
In my front yard is a crab apple tree. (see featured photo above)
Her name is Wanda.
Don’t judge.
Her fruit is unreasonably tart and she drops it all over the grass, leaving it for us to pick up by the bucketful come autumn.
Does she care if we make it into jelly or sauce or that awesome syrup my childhood neighbor used to make? No. Does she give a shit if her fruit rots and kills our grass? Not one lick.
Wanda and her fruity friends across the world do what they do even if no one sees them or tends to them or makes use of their produce.
I want to be more like Wanda.
For most of my life, I have agonized over all the things I do, wondering if they matter. Wondering if they will have significance to the world around me. What should I do with my ability to sew and craft items? My songwriting capabilities? What about my paintings and drawings?
Will anyone care about the art that I create? Will they buy it?
Will anyone read this blog? Will it help them? Will it be meaningful to them?
I’m wringing my hands and biting my lip, hoping my life will contribute to the good of humanity in some way, while Wanda drops an apple, giving no fucks today. Or any day.
She will NEVER give any fucks.
I think one of our biggest problems is that we give too many fucks.
What if we just stopped?
What if we just gave up caring and just did what we wanted to do whether people buy it, or read it, or even know it exists.
What if we made food, wrote stories, created art, climbed rocks and just lived the way we wanted...because we want to. We do it for our own self. What if we enjoy every last little tidbit about the things we like to do JUST BECAUSE WE LIKE TO DO THEM?
Why does it have to be about some kind of majestic purpose or destiny?
Why does it have to be perfect?
Why does it have to involve money?
Most of the fruit that Wanda produces gets eaten by worms. The birds don’t even want them. Unreasonably tart, remember? Still, she flowers every spring, some years putting out an obnoxious number of apples that we make our child pick up as part of “contributing to the family”.
She would do this crazy cycle in the middle of the woods, no human in sight, fruit rotting on the ground beneath her, doing it whether worms, birds, or other critters ate her fruit or not...whether her seeds sprouted in the ground or not...whether anyone, anywhere appreciated her beauty or not.
Wanda just does it.
Because she can.
Do the things you love because you can. Because you want to. Not because someone is looking or not looking. Not because you’ll get a pat on the back or make a ton of money. Not because it will look good on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest.
All the things you like don’t have to have a reason. There doesn’t have to be some magical goal or some mysterious purpose that you can’t seem to figure out. You don’t have to make a plan or force things to work out.
Just do the shit you like because you freaking like it!
The end.