I once planted lettuce, hoping it would bring a touch of nature into my bleak, concrete-jungle existence.
Lettuce, because the internet said they're virtually unkillable. And I needed that, because I’ve unintentionally committed more acts of botanical homicide than I care to admit.
True to its reputation, the lettuce was persistent. The sprouts pushed through the soil with vigor.
Too much vigor, honestly. It was messy.
So, in an attempt at aesthetic appeal, I plucked them out and replanted them into neat lines.

They were beautiful. For about 16 hours.

Soon they started to grow disorderly again. So, I uprooted them - again - and fixed their alignment. Then, I did it once more.

They all died.
Cause of death: my obsessive need for perfection. I basically managed them to death.

It was in that morbid moment that I began to understand nature. Forcing life into artificial standards strips it of its very vitality.
From the lettuce’s perspective, my obsession with straight lines must have been grotesque. (So sorry)

We are lettuce.
Ever since we traded our souls for steam engines, the world has mechanized everything in the name of efficiency. We’ve started treating ourselves like machines that must function without a single glitch.

This obsession starts in the cradle. "Developmental Milestones", which should be regarded as suggestions, have become rigid yardsticks used to judge whether a child is "normal" or not.
I see people panic, rushing to re-align themselves and others the second they fall slightly out of sync.

Trees planted in the same soil bloom at different speeds. But in our efficiency-driven world, if you bloom a bit later than the neighbors, you’re diagnosed as "malfunctioning."

We’re told that "health" is a checklist: two liters of water, ten thousand steps, a 6 AM alarm.
Regardless of who you are or if you actually enjoy any of those things.
Why then do we, as living organisms, impose a consistency on ourselves that is harsher than what we expect from a glitchy doorbell? A doorbell has one job. We have, like, fifty six.

I dream of a society that doesn't suffocate us with manuals on how to "stay in line."
A society where it is safe to be what we were always meant to be: beautifully messy, wonderfully disorganized, and perfectly healthy lettuce.