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| Rosa 'Benjamin Britten' November 4 2018 |
In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of
closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality,
ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics and De
Anima, which is about the human psyche.
The concept of potentiality, in this context, generally
refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have.
Aristotle did not consider all possibilities the same, and emphasized the
importance of those that become real of their own accord when conditions are
right and nothing stops them. Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the
motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a
possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense.
Wikipedia
Thompson concludes that he is unable to solve the mystery
and that the meaning of Kane's last word will forever remain an enigma. As the
film ends, the camera reveals that "Rosebud" is the trade name of the
sled on which the eight-year-old Kane was playing on the day that he was taken
from his home in Colorado.
Citizen Kane – Wikipedia
More often than not a rosebud as seen in books, the net
or in the garden are unopened roses in which you can discern the eventual
colour of the rose. The petals are tightly closed.
But few ever stop to look at that step before the colour
shows and how these buds, especially in old roses (or in the case here an
English Rose), can be a thing of beauty.
My first real knowledge of the word potential came in my
high school physics. With people, including ourselves, we sometimes deprecate them if they do not fulfill
their potential and become a failure.
My mentor, Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. without
mentioning God told us that our obligation in life was to find out what we did
well and then to do it.
I wonder what Brother Edwin would have said had he seen
this delightfully beautiful Rosa ‘Benjamin Britten’. Considering that today is
November 4 there was no possibility that this bud would ever become what it
was meant to be. Is it a failure?
When is a rose not a rose?
When is a rose not a rose?