[not a real word!] From flower+’cide’: denoting an act of killing.
I first heard of “random acts of kindness” from my friend Jon who loves spending his life anonymously giving out significant stuff, preferably to strangers. He picks a day and then figures out what the lovely act could be. It might be signing up to collaborate with a charity, buying somebody a sandwich, playing along with a tube musician…who knows. Whatever it is, it is always something that “builds”: it builds relationship, it builds the other person up, it’s good for the environment; it’s always anonymous and inspiring.
Surfing on YouTube I came across LiquidBio’s version of Random Acts Of Kindness. It consists of giving out roses to random people in the street, filming it and then putting it on YouTube. It made me laugh! It does work, people smile, they appreciate it but there are a couple issues at hand: it’s sexist, as these roses are only awarded to women, and not environmentally friendly. Imagine, if they gave out one rose per day…that’s 365 roses a year! (yes and 365 smiling women as well but – think! it’s still 365 murdered flowers!!!)
LiquidBio guys: your intentions are good, you’re kinda cute but the whole point of random acts of kindness is doing something useful…
This flower giving custom is rather peculiar. Why use a dead being to say “You’re beautiful” or “I love you so much that I would waste £60 in 6 dead-but-alive-looking-roses”? Don’t get me wrong, I do like receiving flowers; but from the right person! If some random stranger came up to me and handed me a flower along with have-a-nice-day wishes I’d think he’d wasted that flower’s life. I would thank them but at the same time I’d feel sorry for that flower’s pointless death.
Some of my friends think I’m taking this too far: they’re just flowers, they don’t feel a thing when you cut them off and don’t suffer while dying… True. But still, aren’t we meant to use our resources responsibly? Shouldn’t we avoid waste in general? Isn’t that the best way to co-exist with the planet?
