Being Sensitive or Not

"Don't be so sensitive!"  It's something that many a parent has told a child in order to deal with injured emotions.  It is for the very same reason that children are taught the verse, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

What got me to reflecting upon this matter of sensitivity, however, was not any incident involving a child's tenderness.  Instead, I got to thinking about this matter because of a tiny fern-like plant, the Mimosa roemeriana.  It's common name is, in fact, the "sensitive briar," and it is indeed quite sensitive.

When I was growing up, the children in my neighborhood would sometimes keep a lookout for the plant growing snug against the ground, hidden in the grass at the edge of the driveway.  If its pink puffball of a bloom was not present, it could remain camouflaged from our sight in the grass.  But what delighted us was not that pink ball, but the plant's sensitivity to touch.  Even just touching the leaf lightly with a small twig could make the rows of leaflets on each side of the center spine fold in against each other.

We were never able to figure out how long it was before the leaflets would re-open. However, there is one thing I have figured out from my study of this world:  It is not just humans and the sensitive briar that are sensitive.  Every animal, plant, fungi, algae, and bacteria upon this planet is.

Buddhism employs the word "sentient" (from a similar Latin root as "sensitive") to help cultivate a compassion not just for humans but for all animals.  That's a worthy endeavor, especially because too much of Western Christianity has narrowed down its focus to the human sphere.

Nevertheless, even plants, fungi, algae, and bacteria are sensitive in their own way in that they are responsive to stimuli from outside their bodies.  Although the relatively quick responsiveness of insect-eating plants such as the Venus's-flytrap is visible to our naked eye, all plants are changing their metabolism and growth patterns as the sun shifts and the water level changes. And we humans are learning the hard way how even bacteria species adapt to the warfare of our antibiotics.

Indeed, if any species of life had not been sensitive to its environment, it would not have evolved into the species it is today.  It is as if at the inception of each species, Evolution had commanded, "Be sensitive!"

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How do you try to find a middle ground between being overly sensitive and not sensitive enough?

(The green artwork is licensed under a Creative Commons

 Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license by Ade McO-Campbell.)