SEMPERVIVUM

I had a friend in high school who said that, since our brains have limited capacity, it's conceivable that we'll have to forget something in order to fit something new in. That in turn reminded me that in One Hundred Years Of Solitude, everyone in the town of Macondo develops amnesia.  They realize it's happening and begin labeling everything with its name - chair, table, etc. before total memory loss descends. 
     I thought of this while talking to a friend about succulents. I know something about them. When I had breast cancer a few years ago, I developed a passion for succulents of all kinds. I found nurseries online that were happy to ship them; I haunted local nurseries which inevitably had a limited stock. I joined the succulent society which has a sale once a year and some of the best ones I have come from those sales. I was well into this obsession before I learned that a genus of succulents is called "sempervivum," always living. Of course, I thought, I'm still in treatment for cancer. Of course I want to be sempervivum. I doubt that it was a coincidence.
     I've had many of these obsessions; I plunge right in. I love sub-cultures; I find it very human and very touching that people want to come together to share something they're interested in, even love. The succulent society, the antique watch society, the first editions society. I once ran across a man who collected barbed wire which evidently comes in different wire weights and a variety of knots. I don't know if he found a group of like-minded people, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did. 
     Another way to describe this succession of passions that claims me so often is that I have a continual need to learn something new. Sometimes I ignore work that I should be doing but I think it's a fair trade-off. Becoming interested, learning something I didn't know, fills me with an energy that spills over into the rest of my life. It's the energy I crave along with its bonus of new people and new facts, new ideas. My mind is directed outward, into the world and that's always a very good thing.
     Passion and learning - sempervivum indeed.