MOTHER LOVE

by Riccardo Giacomini

In 1630 a tulip mania broke out in the Dutch Republic. It was a speculative bubble on the prices of tulips, maybe the first one ever documented in the history of capitalism. At the peak of tulip mania an entire house was traded for the equivalent of a single, extremely rare bulb. As the plague broke out, the price of tulips plunged. Very rich tradesmen were ruined overnight.

MOTHER LOVE

Many of you call me Mother; others, like all children do, rise up against me.
And maybe that’s right.
I made only twelve of those flowers bloom all over the world; their beauty and rarity depended on their being sick. Their white petals where streaked with red because of a virus. The same virus which would certainly lead them to extinction within a few years. This is why people were attracted by them.
For one of those twelve flowers there were people willing to trade their lifetime’s work, their home, their safety. People were going crazy, so I made them sick too. They started to die. Killing some of them always makes them come back with their feet on the ground. No one would have spent a fortune ever again to see some flowers bloom.
The reason why, after all, I love human beings is that, ever since they’ve existed, they periodically go crazy for useless things like gold, diamonds… flowers. They recognize their beauty and preciousness only by virtue of their rarity.
The fact that they attach so much importance to something as futile and silly as rarity and beauty makes me think that they are basically naïve and they can’t be evil.
They are the same people who day after day destroy forests which transform poisonous gases into breathable air for free. The same people who kill plants that allow them to survive on Earth. But they are also the same people who are willing to lose everything for the rarity of a flower. I am curious to see them when only one tree will be left. To see them recognize its beauty and preciousness at last, by virtue of its rarity.
Only then will they come back with their feet on the ground, spontaneously.