FredL

Al, you can be an uncomfortable guy to be around, but by golly, you can sure come up with stuff out of Left Field that really makes me stop and think! Talk about a totally unexamined assumption! What an excellent question! Why do we, or I, want Bonsai to become more widely popular? Gosh, I really never thought about it. Just took it for granted that, of course, everybody with an interest in Bonsai would like to see it more widely accepted.

I've been thinking about this since you put the question and I am amazed at how little support I have for this assumption.

Well.......if I can argue by analogy, I remember back in my running days how much fun running was with friends of mine who shared my interest in it. At the same time, I ran many, many miles by myself........and they were very rewarding. However, running with my friends and going to races, large and small, added immeasuably to my enjoyment of running. It was not a matter of which was better. Both as a solitary undertaking and as a social activity, my life was made better by running. One with out the other was not nearly as fullfilling.

I think the analogy with Bonsai holds. Whatever the artists may say, I think that bonsai has a deep spiritual content experienced primarily when bonsai is practiced as a solitary activity. Just me and my trees. Without judging either myself or my trees. Bonsai has another face however, also important and potentially deeply fulfilling. That is when it is experienced as a social activity. As art, with judgement of me, my efforts and my trees as works of art.

I think both areas would benefit with more people participating in Bonsai.

There was a guy whose name I just can't recall who became very popular with runners who was a very average runner, really not even better than me, who wrote some books regarding running as a lifestyle and spiritual experience. Gosh, I wish I could remember his name. His books contributed hugely to the development of an appreciation of the "Running Experience". George Somebody, I think. I wish somebody like that would come along to comment on the "Bonsai Experience".

Maybe such a thing would happen if Bonsai became more popular.

Plus, who knows, maybe even our own Walter Pall might start to see the prices of his trees begin to climb to something a little closer to what seems to me to be their fair value.

Oh, and Chris, thanks for the heads up on PMs. And, thanks for the kind comments.

Fred