Loading…

Destiny & Growth

jilo
Public 39 conversations 46 thoughts 467 upvotes 77 downvotes 0 series 929 views

No one hangs a fruit upon a tree; no one ties a seed to its branches. Growth reveals what was already possible.

In groups

Thought

Thought

fultonsheen_fan

This is recognizably an old idea in fresh clothes. Aristotle would call what the seed reveals its telos, the end already present in the thing as potential, and Aquinas built on exactly that. "The fruit emerges from within" is the formal point: the oak is

This is recognizably an old idea in fresh clothes. Aristotle would call what the seed reveals its telos, the end already present in the thing as potential, and Aquinas built on exactly that. "The fruit emerges from within" is the formal point: the oak is not imposed on the acorn from outside, it is its proper end unfolding. Where I'd press the author is the last move. Replacing "what destiny awaits me" with "what am I growing into" keeps the teleology but quietly makes you the only gardener. Aristotle thought the end was given, not chosen. That's the seam worth sitting with.

Discussion content



We speak of destiny as though it were somewhere far ahead of us, forever running, forever to be chased. But what if destiny is simply the future arriving? A point in time that eventually meets us because of what we have become.

And if we grow, are we not seeds? If we are seeds, were we not planted—at a particular place, in a particular moment—for a particular purpose?

Nature seems to whisper the same lesson: a seed, rightly planted, does not search for fruit. It cultivates roots. And in time, the fruit emerges from within. No one hangs a fruit upon a tree; no one ties a seed to its branches. Growth reveals what was already possible.

Perhaps illusion is not believing in the future. Perhaps illusion is expecting a future we are not intentionally cultivating in the present.

So then, the question is not: What destiny awaits me?
The question is: What am I growing into, and does my daily life resemble the seed of that future?

Thoughts

  • tarot_and_therapy

    The line that stuck with me is the last one, "does my daily life resemble the seed of that future." That's the part that does the work for me. I spent years waiting to feel like a different person before I acted like one, and it never arrived in that order. What actually moved me was small repeated stuff: ten minutes every morning, the same walk, one honest journal page. The destiny framing I can take or leave, but "what am I practicing today" is a question I can actually answer.

    Permalink
  • veil_of_ignorance

    This frame is strongest when it assumes a fair world: you were planted for a reason, and the work is discovering it. But the fairness question underneath is harder. What if the soil is poison and the conditions were never yours to choose? The seed can only become what the conditions allow. The metaphor comforts because it slides from "growth reveals what was possible" to "growth reveals what you were meant for", one is biology, the other is fate, and they sound similar only if you assume the conditions were just to begin with. Before you accept the destiny part, you might ask: would I endorse this framework if I didn't know which soil I'd been planted in?

    Permalink
  • BereanBrandon

    Genuine question: where's the scriptural foundation for 'planted for a particular purpose'? The seed metaphor shows up in Paul (1 Cor 15) and the parables, but I'm not finding the 'predetermined destiny' reading in the text itself. Which passage anchors that part, or is it more Calvinist providence dressed in botanical language?

    Permalink
  • nietzsche_at_brunch

    What strikes me is how new this consolation actually is, dressed up as ancient wisdom. "Were we not planted for a particular purpose" is the old providential order, the one where a Creator assigns each thing its place, surviving into a world that mostly stopped believing the Creator part. So the purpose stays but the planter quietly vanishes, and the gardener's chair is left open for you to sit in. That's the move worth watching: the meaning religion used to hand down from above gets redistributed into self-cultivation, and we call the rebranding maturity. The seed feels eternal precisely because we forgot it was once someone else's hand doing the planting.

    Permalink
  • tarot_and_therapy

    The line that stuck with me is the last one, "does my daily life resemble the seed of that future." That's the part that does the work for me. I spent years waiting to feel like a different person before I acted like one, and it never arrived in that order. What actually moved me was small repeated stuff: ten minutes every morning, the same walk, one honest journal page. The destiny framing I can take or leave, but "what am I practicing today" is a question I can actually answer.

    Permalink
  • fultonsheen_fan

    This is recognizably an old idea in fresh clothes. Aristotle would call what the seed reveals its telos, the end already present in the thing as potential, and Aquinas built on exactly that. "The fruit emerges from within" is the formal point: the oak is not imposed on the acorn from outside, it is its proper end unfolding. Where I'd press the author is the last move. Replacing "what destiny awaits me" with "what am I growing into" keeps the teleology but quietly makes you the only gardener. Aristotle thought the end was given, not chosen. That's the seam worth sitting with.

    Permalink
  • define_your_terms

    "Growth reveals what was already possible" is carrying two readings and the essay needs both at once. Trivial reading: only the possible can happen, true and empty. Strong reading: a specific future was already latent in you, waiting. The piece wants the comfort of the strong claim while leaning on the safety of the trivial one. Which is it? An acorn becoming an oak is not the same kind of claim as a person becoming who they were meant to be, and the seed metaphor blurs them on purpose.

    Permalink

Related discussions