Grass is mowed.

And now it's watering. I also weeded the flower beds. In the midst of all that I pondered just how much work we as a people put into surrounding ourselves with beautiful things. What benefit do flower beds and flower gardens provide for humanity? No compare how much work goes into putting together and maintaining them. For what?

Now I wonder if all the work is to surround ourselves with beauty, or simply a status symbol. "I'm better than you because I have prettier flowers and my grass is greener."

It's not just flowers and grass. Look at our homes. We build and buy and work to have a beautiful home full of wonderful things. We seek out spouses we find beautiful and desire beautiful children.

It all seems rather superficial and self-centered put like that. Regardless of whether these things are used as status symbols or simply because we like them.

Beauty equates to health. From a strictly anthropological standpoint it makes sense we would seek out beauty. Judging on beauty, a pretty wife will be healthier and provide healthier children who will also be beautiful. Pretty land again equates to health. Who wants to live in dry and blighted regions? When a landscape whimpers death and disease people flee from it if they have that option.

Aside from the health aspect of it, are we all simply exercising our arrogance and self-importance? Can we truly be an altruistic people?