Grow and fall

Illustration: Markéta Profeldová

“Summer would not last forever; he knew it and Ronia knew it. But now they began to live as if it would, and as far as possible they pushed away all painful thoughts of winter.”

(Astrid Lindgren, Ronia, the Robber's Daughter)

Summer hasn't started yet, but this post will be about fall.

In elementary school English classes, we learned that there are two words that refer to the season that follows summer: autumn and fall. I prefer fall because it contrasts nicely with grow.

As a civilization, we tend to grow. We want to grow, we desire to grow. But is there anything in this world that only grows? Infinitely? Fall is a key part of all natural processes. Plants, animals, human bodies. Ideas, political parties, companies. Everything is in a constant cycle of growth and fall.

But even though we know the inevitability of fall and subsequent winter, we tend to dread the season when plants wither and rot, days are shorter and darker, and cold winds force us to seek warm shelter. We try to postpone these days as much as possible.

Similarly, we fear falling in our life journeys and look for ways to stop it or at least postpone it. When we lose strength, we improve our fitness plan. When our cognitive capacity begins to decrease, we buy cognitive enhancers. When our hair loses its color, we put chemicals on it.

Together in the dark days

In fall and winter, perhaps nothing goes as smoothly as in summer. We need more artificial light, more supplies, more clothing. And it is almost impossible to make it all on our own. In our common sense, spring and summer mean strenght while fall and winter mean weakness.

Ronia and Birk, the main characters of Astrid Lindgren's famous book Ronia, the Robber's Daughter, enjoy the summer in a cave in the deep forest and try to push away the thoughts of winter because they know winter in the forest cannot be survived only on their own. They are painfully aware they will have to return home which, for them, means to go back to one of the two families that hate each other and would never allow them to hang out together again.

The hearts of Ronia and Birk are contracted by fear of separation when facing fall and winter.

But for their parents, it is the opposite. As fall gets closer, the hope that their children will be back home and the family will reunite grows.

You surely know how it ended. Of course, there was a happy-end. Fall brought Ronia and Birk home but it also brought peace to both of the families. In the dark days of winter, Birk and Ronia were together again, as they were with their families.

Getting ready to fall

I like playing with the idea that every process should have its fall. Take a cycle of a day. There are days we wish they never end. So many beautiful moments, so much energy, so much fun. Sometimes we try to make it longer and longer and then we fall to bed as we are. Sometimes, next morning lets us know that we should have been a bit more careful.

We are used to say that spring is a preparation for summer and that fall is a preparation for winter. But why shouldn't winter be also preparation for spring and summer preparation for fall? Could night be preparation for morning and day preparation for evening? Could middle adulthood be preparation for old age?

To put it differently: while growing, could we already prepare ourselves for falling?

When a plant starts to wither, it doesn't disappear at once. Rather, it slowly gets closer to the soil, then merges with it, and it serves as food for other plants and animals. The same applies to process of aging. We get closer to our roots and to our community. And while we need more help, we also help others to grow.

While falling, we help others growing. So maybe this is the process that we could prepare for already while growing. Could we grow so that the subsequent falling would be as frutiful as possible? Or to use the language of plants: could we grow in a way that would bring our seeds to a fertile soil?  

At the beginning of this post I doubted there is anything that only grows. But (unfortunately) there are such things. Cancer, for example. It grows until there is life. And if it is not brutally stopped and destroyed, it destroys life. Endless growth brings death.

Life needs not only to grow, but also to fall. It is switching between these two modes that make life beautiful. So, get ready for the summer but also think about fall.