The Secret Relationship Between Plants and People | Nick Cutsumpas

It only took 32 square feet to change my life. That's how big the plot of land was in my childhood backyard where I first learned about plants. I'd just graduated from college, and since I was going to be living at home, rent-free, my mom wanted me to do something around the house, so she suggested I start a garden. Without knowing a thing about growing food or plants in general, I agreed, and what started as this simple summertime hobby soon became my obsession. Each season the garden grew more robust, with sugar snap peas, sweet potatoes, and sunflowers bursting forth from the earth like a jungle, and I took fierce pride in the life I was cultivating. My parents observed from afar, and with mild concern, but they too enjoyed the fruits of my labor. They weren't plant people. They didn't grow up gardening. They didn't even own plants. Yet their son was now rolling around in the dirt and reading seed catalogs in his free time. I was very, very cool. Three years after I planted that first garden, I moved to New York City to continue my corporate career in tech sales, and it was a shock to the system. After spending a few weeks in my 600 square foot concrete box of an apartment, I realized that there was a garden-sized hole in my life, so I did the only thing that made sense and bought 100 houseplants. I was suddenly aware of my role in the ecosystem and was attempting to return to the roots that made me feel human. Back to square one. Biophilia is a term coined by the famed entomologist Edward O. Wilson, and it stems from the Greek words bio meaning life and philia meaning love. Now, most people interpret it to mean love of life, but if you dig a little deeper into the etymology, you'll find that philia is much more complex. Philia represents brotherly love, and Aristotle's work portrays it as a friendship and loyalty to one's own family and community. So when you look back at the translation of biophilia, it is not a aesthetic or romantic love, but a friendship with the natural world. This is an important distinction because it puts plants and nature on the same plane as humans, rather than making it an object of our affection that can be controlled or mastered. I believe that Wilson was aware of this subtlety, and he hypothesized that humans are inherently drawn to and will seek out experiences with nature. And this makes even more sense when you realize that for 99.999% of human history, we have lived and evolved in yet only in the last few hundred years have we decided to isolate ourselves in cities devoid of nature. In 1950, 30% of people lived in cities. Today, that number is 56%, and it will reach 68% by 2050. We're moving in the opposite direction, and it should inspire us to bring botanical life back into the built environment, back to square one. As part of my job, I oftentimes will take my clients plant shopping, and one of my favorite plant shopping experiences was with a famous fashion influencer in New York City. I show up to the shop, I'm dressed in my t-shirt and jeans, cool plant shoes, and she shows up dressed to the nine. She's got the outfit, she's got the makeup and the hair, and she even brought a professional photographer. But even so, she was like a kid in the candy store, bending down to inspect and examine every single leaf. We made our purchases and we loaded them into a taxi, and I get into the back seat and I look over, and there she is, she's cradling a plant in her arms, talking to it lovingly, and then she did something that I will never forget. She put her face in the soil, literally takes her nose, puts it into the soil of the plant, breathes it all in, looks me in the eye, and says, I can't remember the last time I touched the earth. Here you had this beautiful woman living a luxurious lifestyle, seemingly fulfilled in every way, putting her face in the soil of a potted plant because she'd been deprived of nature for so long. It doesn't matter how many Instagram followers you have, it doesn't matter how much money you make, it does not matter how many things you have. We are still humans that need plants in our environment in order to live our best lives. And it should come as no surprise that the people who live the longest, happiest lives on this planet are not those living in cities, but the exact opposite. Listen, I'll be honest, I didn't really care about the environment before plants came into my life. I used a ton of single-use plastic and regrettably mocked the Meatless Monday kids in my college dining hall, many of whom I would probably be friends with today. Environmental issues were simply out of sight and out of mind, and had I continued living a plant-less life, I probably would have remained the same. But the plants changed all that though, and I give them full credit for turning me into the thrift shopping, electric car driving, kitchen composting, vegan eating environmentalist I am today. Although the process didn't happen overnight, Mother Nature had planted a seed deep inside my mind, and an important question began to germinate. How could I care about the plants that I was growing, but not about the earth that was home to these beautiful beings? Plants were the stepping stones, the botanical bridge that guided me to this more environmentally enlightened state, and if it could happen to me, then why couldn't it happen to others? Therefore, it is my theory that if I can convince you to care about this small plant here, you are going to start caring about the big plant we all live on. I thought long and hard about this transformation, and channeling my inner Master Yoda, I have created a pathway to environmentalism that I call the Four Es. Experience in nature leads to excitement about nature. Excitement about nature leads to empathy for nature, and empathy for nature leads to efforts to protect nature. And listen, you don't have to go sell your gas car and grow 100% of your own food, or move off the grid into the woods like Thoreau. Instead, just start with a plant. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to care about the environment when so many of us are disconnected from the very nature we are asked to protect, which is why this small plant can change everything. I may be advocating for the earth through its consumption, but I'm playing the long game here. We need to see plants, touch plants, experience plants in order to grow a desire to protect them. And even though there is no such thing as the perfect environmentalist, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can. Our food, our clothes, our furniture, our transportation all impact the earth in some way. And every action, no matter how small, can make a difference. For us to save this planet, we need to go back to square one, to the basics of living with nature and learning to be better stewards of this earth. So if you remember anything from this talk, remember this, buy the plant, protect that plant, and always be growing. Thank you.