gardening for answers

Unemployment the worst since 1929, businesses failing, and the government worried as to how to turn things around. Chance, or Chauncey Gardiner as people called him, spoke about gardening and people listened.

Chance is the main character in Jerzy Kosinski’s (1970) novel, Being There. You may remember the film starring Peter Sellers and Shirley McClain. Chance, who grew up on an estate, isolated from the outside world by his benefactor and guardian, “The Old Man”, tends the garden there over many years, and never learns to read or write. After the old man dies, the executors of The Old Man’s estate, having no record of Chance’s employment or even existence, ask him to leave.

Chance enters the outside world and is promptly hit by a limo carrying the wife of Wall Street’s greatest tycoon. She takes Chance home with her for medical care and story proceeds with “Chauncey Gardiner” rubbing elbows with the President, ambassadors, being propelled into the media, and after just three days…well, I won’t ruin the story.

The story, despite its age, resonates today in a couple of ways.

Firstly, Chance’s innocent statements about gardening still relate to our economy and state of mind. In the story, when the President asks for Chance’s opinion about the current “bad season on the [Wall] Street”, Chance gives this innocent assessment:

“In a garden, growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well.” (p.54)

The President agrees with Chance and replies:

“Many of us forget that nature and society are one. Yes, though we have tried to cut ourselves off from nature, we are still part of it. Like nature, our economic system remains, in the long run, stable and rational, and that’s why we must not fear to be at its mercy.” (p.55)

Secondly, Chance likes to watch TV. Television defines his definition of reality and serves as his “Wikipedia” in that he defines what he encounters based upon his television experiences. While he feels, the essence of his feeling is attained by watching. I wonder how Chance would have reacted to the enhanced watching using a PC or a Mac?…he may have been a Mac guy.

Despite his seeming fascination with the virtual reality of television, Chance balances that imaginary world with a very real understanding of the organic world. His simplicity and innocence makes him all the more complex.

For me, he represents the complexity of humanity:

- our fascination with the virtual world that allows us to manipulate the remote, change the channel, type the message, write the code, and endlessly edit our online work, and network with others, hopefully in a social way.

- our ability to interact with nature, and live in harmony with it.

What’s all this have to do with economic recovery? Nothing.