Volume and Line: Two Architectures of Life

I love that social media casually asks, "What's on your mind?" It gives me an excuse to answer with things like this:

Right now, I am thinking about the shape of life. More precisely, I am thinking about the fascinating way plants grow. Unlike animals, whose bodies are organized as volumes that grow by expanding an established form, plants grow primarily through linear extension. They continually add new roots, stems, branches, and leaves, reshaping themselves throughout their lives.

Imagine how extraordinarily complex that architecture must become to maximize the capture of light, the exchange of gases with the atmosphere, and the uptake of water and nutrients from the soil.

Yes, this is genuinely the kind of thing that's on my mind.