The Potentiality of a Rosebud
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 Novermber 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?
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
