Someone once told me that plants hate the color green.
It sounds absurd, but there’s science behind it. When light hits a plant, it absorbs the blue and red wavelengths for photosynthesis—but it reflects green. That’s why we see plants as green in the first place. They’re literally rejecting it, bouncing it away like an unwanted guest.
His point was sharper than botanical trivia: we humans are hopelessly self-centered. Plants “hate” green, yet we’ve crowned it the color of everything good. Green lights mean go. Green checkmarks mean success. Green labels promise sustainability. We took the color plants reject and made it our symbol for growth, health, and approval.
We don’t consider the plant’s perspective. We only care about our own observations, our own ideas, our own ideals.
He meant it as a criticism, but I think he stumbled onto something profound.
This is exactly what humans do—and maybe it’s exactly what we’re supposed to do.
We give meaning to meaningless things. These very words are just shapes on a screen until we agree they mean something. A painting is just pigment on canvas. A song is just organized vibrations in the air. A movie is just flickering lights and recorded sound.
None of it matters objectively. All of it matters deeply.
That small, thoughtful gift from your partner—the one that cost almost nothing—might be worth less than anything else you own. But it could also be a thousand times more meaningful than the expensive things collecting dust in your closet.
Because meaning isn’t discovered. It’s created.
Maybe the plants do hate green. But we looked at their rejection and saw life itself. We built entire systems of meaning around colors and symbols and sounds that have no inherent significance. And somehow, through this strange alchemy of human perception, we create connection, express emotion, and find purpose.
The plant doesn’t care what we think about green. But we care. And perhaps that caring—that relentless human need to assign meaning, to make sense, to find beauty in the arbitrary—is not a flaw in our design.
It might be the whole point.
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