The Cactus

Thesis A cactus conserves water in its body and has thorns to ward off other animals who might be looking for water in a desert

The cactus’ defensive strategy

• Conserve resources
• Protect yourself and your resources from other attackers who are after your resources by making it difficult / physically painful to get to the resource

Philosophical outlook

1. Is the cactus selfish or just being what it is? For (being selfish)

• If the cactus had a conscience, then it could be considered selfish if it didn’t consider the need of its attacker on a case-by-case basis. A parched animal about to die of thirst could be treated differently than someone looking for a second filling and maybe able to search around for an oasis.

• The cactus, having become fat by just conserving water and not voluntarily releasing some of it back into the ground (check this) to maintain the moisture around itself is doing another disservice to small insects who may have taken shelter under the cactus.

Against (being itself)

• The cactus is a plant and has limitations. Eg. It cannot move to defend itself
• The scene is a desert environment where water and rainfall are scarce, so conservation is necessary
• The cactus has evolved to conserve the precious water and nature has also provided it with thorns to defend itself.

1. What is its existential purpose? The existence of the cactus, as far as known to me, cannot be just for its own survival. It also exists so that when desperation strikes other parched animals in the desert, they do have a last resort of risking some pain to get to the water in the cactus. While from the point of view of the selfish cactus, it exists for itself and can think that it is a king of its environment as it is well adapted to the heat and lack of water, from the point of view of any other animal, the cactus is a marker in the desert to keep track of when wandering around or crossing the desert, just in case, one’s water runs out or an oasis isn’t found.

2. Why does the cactus exist in the desert? This reveals the symbiosis of multiple species upon the cactus, just as it needs to be done for all other species in the biosphere. If evolution is right about life having evolved in parallel over billions of years, there are connections among species that we, with our relatively recent technological innovation may not have figured out yet. When dealing with inter-species endangerment or extinction issues, it is necessary to cut down our hubris and look at things from the point of view of future generations who may be denied the chance to sort things out despite having the capability to do so.

3. How does the cactus metaphor apply to everyday life? There will always be some resource that is hard to get to and is protected. In the plane of existence of that specific resource, someone must brave the odds in order to get life saving help. Competition may be larger than expected as the resources are thinly spread out. So, it is neither the fault of the resource for being defensive or useful, nor the fault of the persons seeking it for doing everything possible to try to obtain the resource.

This once again comes down to the attribution of value, as the resource obtains value for the people searching for it just by existing, being scarce and something immediately useful or covetable.

Meanwhile, the resource just exists by itself, minding it’s own business and surviving or thriving as per the context.

This would explain the prices of goods in economies, chasing after someone in relationships, or even the value of protecting yourself as a resource that others may bid down against.