The Golden Flower

You're walking in the park, and suddenly, you see this beautiful yellow flower, almost golden. It’s unlike any other flower you have ever seen. What would you do?

You pluck it, because it is extraordinarily beautiful and you want to keep it for yourself. It’s a thing of beauty and you do not want to share it. You like sharing your food, your clothes. But when you see something so beautiful that it takes you closer to God every time you look at it, you want to take it and keep it for yourself. Hidden from others, hidden from sunlight.

The flower withers away and you know it will die soon. But you keep it hidden. You still don’t keep it in the open so it gets some air and light for fear that someone else will come along and take it from you. You would not know what you would do if something like that happens. You will break and cry all day, longing for the flower that was yours back.

But the flower was never yours. And it does not belong to the person who stole it from you. One day, it will get stolen for him. The chain goes on until one day, the flower, devoid of nutrition and all things good dies. Because beauty needs more than greed to survive. Beauty needs more than selfishness. And no one was able to give the beautiful flower anything more. Not because they did not know. But because they did not want to. Because you’d rather let beauty die than anyone else own it. Because you don’t realize, beauty is not yours to own. Beauty belongs to no one but to itself.

All good things must come to an end, they say. They say that to comfort themselves. Knowing that everyone could suffer like them. They say that because they would rather have infinite sadness and disappointment going around than see beauty elsewhere wishing it belonged to them.