Haibun: Second Life

If a saguaro had consciousness just like we do, and told stories to themselves like we do, I’m sure it would be based around limits like our stories are. Through the 2-300 years of life it lives, I’m sure it would think about itself, life, death, and the limit of things because this is how we are wired to think.

And like us, the saguaro would miss out on the importance of its life beyond pleasure and status, it would miss out on the importance of its second life. Initially, the life of saguaro is built in and around growing and becoming the center of a small ecosystem of desert life; but in the saguaro’s second life, it becomes food for local animals to feed on when there isn’t much other.

But if the saguaro had consciousness like we do, it wouldn’t matter that it fed the world around it, it would only matter that it would die and the consciousness with it. And so, our self preservation may be driven by something different: the self-preservation of each of our consciousness. 

rabbit droppings site,

edible cactus bites, buffet

a second life right