A Variety of Opinions

Opinions, like mosses, are imperceptibly constructed. They survive upon a modest nutrition of dampness. The progress of their development arises from multiple influences and often unrelated incidents much as the changing weather or other extraneous factors. And further like mosses, opinions grow without roots or flowers; yet their soft, green texture is sufficient to cover rocks, roads, gravel or cement.

As with any other living thing, opinions vary depending upon the surrounding circumstances and predominant vernacular. There are reportedly 12,000 species of mosses. Ultimately though their overwhelming character is readily identified and circumscribed. They succeed to cover whatever is hidden beneath; and as a result may at times disguise a less smooth and less unified or ubiquitous surface.

Mosses are simple plants. They have small leaves on a single stem. Mosses often grow in groups because being clumped together helps support each plant, and they can gather more water when they work together.

Moss has the ability to absorb and hold water like a sponge, this way can help to retain moisture in your garden and prevent water from evaporating too quickly. This way other plants in your garden can benefit from access to the water and as a result thrive.

Unlike fungus, moss does not produce spores or poisons that are dangerous to humans. So what’s the problem with it? While moss itself isn’t dangerous, it can cause a myriad of problems if it’s left to develop throughout your garden.

Ecologically, mosses break down exposed substrata, releasing nutrients for the use of more-complex plants that succeed them.

The coarseness covered by the moss is frequently a manifestly diverse collection of ingredients. It is this undergarment which generates and affords the variety of opinions upon which one’s broader appearance survives.  It is for this reason that opinions are so often misconstrued or misinterpreted. Yet it is the same misadventure of concealment which contributes to the welcome variety of opinions. Merely diluting these opinions is what nurtures their absence of monotony and appearance of appeal in our complicated universe.

Basically within each of us is a rampant source of thoughts, the product of years of experience and sometimes genetics, slowly growing, always changing, neatly obscured beneath a mass of seeming uniformity. It is a common error when seeking to define one’s own opinions to presume they are identical or that they are governed by a constituent element. Opinions, though shielded in their complexity and variety by the plain green moss that overlays our common views, nonetheless derive individually by branching and fragmentation, regeneration from tiny pieces of photosynthetic tissues and by the production of spores. Ultimately, the moss grows from a small bud produced by a cell that divides and differentiates. Similarly our opinions convert, change and adapt.

Many years ago while attending Dalhousie University was my introduction to comparative law which alerted me to the explosive analysis of the rudimentary principles of jurisprudence. I was initially struck by the universality of the major premises upon which the law of every nation is constructed. For example, you cannot give what you do not have (“nemo dat quod non habet“); or, you cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly; or, the law does not concern Itself with trivialities (“de minimis non curat lex“). These are but the simplest examples of the paradigms upon which nations have built their independent legal systems; but over and over again I was astounded to remark how similar each of them is to another. Naturally it should not be otherwise.  As often as we are inclined for whatever specious or unwise reason to suppose we are unique or radically different, the closer truth is we are not.  Nonetheless the peculiar fashion in which those elemental principles have evolved do sometimes disclose moderate differences of interpretation, a variety of opinions. It is this variety of opinions which not only distinguish matters of law but also ensure a continuing openness to application.

From this more publicized view of things, it is not difficult to abstract more personal similarities affecting one’s day-to-day transactions and ruminations. The hardboiled gravel underlying each of us is uniquely fodder for the evolution of independent thinking. Although those thoughts and opinions will inevitably be overtaken and shrouded by the moss of existence, the soft verdant cover is not a cloak but rather a mere gauze which shields the variety of opinions from sharpness or vulgarity.