In Defense Of Flowers


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have to get this off my chest.

I was listening to the Script Notes podcast — which is really good — and one of the hosts, Craig Mazin, off handedly said, in effect, he hated flowers.

Wait, what?

I’ve done a Twitter video about this already that Mazin saw and responded to, natch, but the idea that someone like Mazin hates flowers really, really, grates on my nerves.

That someone like Mazin, who is an inspiration for someone like me, wouldn’t like flowers, is flabbergasting. The love of flowers, to me, is so basic to the human experience that to not like flowers it to not have a soul. Some 10,000 years ago, it’s likely a very tired hunter would pause after the hunt to pick up some flowers for his girl back at camp.

A basic appreciation of flowers is to be human. The beauty of flowers — like most beauty — is fleeting. As such, that’s the point of loving flowers. Men give women flowers because they’re both — in our eyes — beautiful and worthy of our respect and devotion. That women tend to like flowers more than men is a bonus — especially if you’re a man who’s in the dog house.

So it really bothers me that Mazin, who ‘s a great writer and storyteller, wouldn’t like flowers. That, in itself, makes me question some things. It gives me a bit of cognitive dissidence. I struggle to understand how someone who wrote Chernobyl, could not like flowers.

Anyway. I’ve belabored this point too much. But I had to vent again.