I was thinking (always a dangerous thing) on my walk to work this morning about the similarities between people and flowers.  Granted, it was -20 and the ice fog might have been seeping into my brain, but it was still an enlightening moment.

Flowers, as we all know (or at least those of us who will be reading this), have petals that grow out from a common point.  The petals can be nearly any colour, size, or shape.  They are, for the most part, beautiful.  They are the part of the flower that we first see; the part that we recognize and use to identify the flower.  However, as flamboyant as the petals are, they're not what the flower's all about; they're just external frippery.  The important parts of the flower are all hidden inside the stodgy bit in the middle; the bit where the petals are attached.  You can remove all the petals yet still leave the "soul" of the flower, it's value and purpose for being, largely intact.  The pollen, nectar, fragrance will all remain in the absence of petals.

We're a lot like that.  Our external personas, often shifting to match the circumstances to help us blend into our surroundings, aren't actually the real "us".  What we are, deep down, is hidden inside the stodgy bit from which all our external camouflaging personas emerge.  Like flowers we differ in how well hidden the middle is - open to the world in daisies and sunflowers; hidden and secretive in roses - but the fundamental distinction between flamboyant petals and stodgy soul remains.  We are far more than the sum of our external manifestations; strip those away and we may no longer be as identifiable, but our inner core, our soul, remains largely intact.

So I face the world triumphantly, in all my flamboyant stodginess.  Take that, world!