Tyler Abbott

“And the Lord took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.”

Genesis 2:15 (from the Latin Vulgate translation)

At the end of Voltaire’s Candide, after having been thoroughly beaten down by life, a small cast of characters led by the titular Candide and his philosopher friend Pangloss, settle down on a farm. They’ve been around the world, suffered through terrible travails, and lost friends and loved ones. They’ve sought after the “good life,” optimistic that they’ll find it just over the horizon, led on by the conviction that this is the “best possible” of all worlds. But, meeting a Turk who cultivates a 20 acre farm with his family, whom they initially mistake for a wealthy man, they’re told that all of his apparent happiness and contentment comes from his commitment to cultivating his land, which keeps away the “three great evils: boredom, vice, and necessity.”

Thus, Candide and his friends decide that really all one can do in life is “cultivate [their] garden.” Because the illustrious lives of kings, philosophers, and the clergy—despite their outward opulence—often end in violence, poverty, and misery. Instead, they conclude, it is better to “set to work and stop proving things… for that is the only way to make life bearable.”

It’s been years since I read Candide, but it’s conclusion, hated by kings, clergy, and scientists upon its publication, drifted back into my mind while weeding our garden. We’re planting today, now that the long winter has finally ended, and so our patch of dirt had to be cleared of weeds and last year’s detritus. We rolled back the old garden fabric, revealing a thriving ecosystem of centipedes, pill bugs, and spiders. They scurried and skittered, stunned by their sudden introduction to a bigger, brighter world.

I can only imagine the sudden terror (can bugs feel terror? – the answer is a resounding maybe) they felt at having their world ripped apart, the literal roof pulled off their lives, and the total loss of any sense of control over their own fate that they must have experienced. Of course, they might not have felt any of that. Maybe I’m reading too much into their panicked little reactions.

Regardless, gardening always reminds me of both the incredible complexity of our little planet and the fragility of our own existence. In a small patch of dirt in the backyard, entire ecosystems develop. Little insect lives come and go. Generations are born and die. All right under our noses and without our knowledge. Now take that little animal drama and multiply it almost infinitely. That’s life on earth. Endless complexity obscured by dirt and foliage.

I can’t help but wonder at the sheer diversity and intricacy of life. It’s stunning. Nearly unimaginable. And under threat. I won’t go into it here, but just like my little labor in the garden upset the lives of all those insects, our collective actions have had wide-ranging and most-likely catastrophic consequences for our planet.

But to return to Candide, spending time in a garden, pulling weeds, planting seeds, or harvesting fruit and vegetables, makes most of life’s activities seem meaningless. Global problems, the entertainment we mindlessly pipe into our faces, the latest celebrity news (*cough* coronation *cough*) fade into insignificance.

Indeed, much of the complexity we inject into our lives, the constant striving to make more money, to make more friends, to get ahead in this or that race, to optimize ourselves just a little bit more, all begin to pale in comparison to the simple joy one finds in cultivating their garden.

At it’s face, this is a puerile idea. One can’t simply give up on their lives to spend time “cultivating their garden” (which, in the 21st century is pretty difficult considering the costs of land). But, at it’s core, it’s a radical challenge to the entire civilization we’ve built up.

Voltaire, in Candide, saw life as a farce that ends in tragedy. We wear ourselves out on our little endeavors and then someone comes and rips the sky apart over our heads, like I did to my insect friends. We build up a life—wealth, intelligence, accomplishment, a family, etc—and then death comes along, catapulting us into that next great mystery:

And it all goes by so fast that I don’t doubt that on our deathbeds, when our lives will be only memories, that we’ll look back with bewilderment at how we spent our time.

One can’t help but wonder if life is better spent in our gardens, cultivating flowers, fruits and vegetables with those we love. And if that was everyone’s prerogative, it’s pretty clear that many of our problems—personal, societal, and global—would disappear.

But as always, I’m of two minds. For the most part, I like the society that we’ve built up. I like “proving things”. I like my job. I like technology. I like watching hockey and soccer. I like not spending everyday in a garden. I like taking my daughter to the movies and going out to eat with my spouse. I like a lot of things that wouldn’t be possible if everyone just spent their time tending their little gardens.

However, I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that I might be wrong. I guess, one day, we’ll find out.

Further Reading:

Full text of Candide
An analysis of Candide