Overcoming Pencil Bigotry

I volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America, working with 14-15 year old boys. Last night, while waiting for some pizza's to come out of the oven, I found a pencil sitting on the counter and mentioned my new interest in pencils to the youth in attendance.

One of them, after I had gone on a bit about pencil lore, suggested that he might do some real damage to my psyche by breaking this particular pencil in half.

"That's absolutely fine by me", I said. "The beautiful thing about the pencil is that despite the fact that it is a fantastic invention, that has been perfected over hundreds of years, it is cheap to produce!"

"Besides, when you're finished destroying that one pencil, you'll have created two more in its place!"

Graphite: Fruitless Searching

I am always amazed, not only at human ingenuity, but to what ends inspiration is directed.

Take a simple object, one that would ordinarily miss notice, because it is ordinary. Something that you take for granted, and reduce that to its simplest form. Take it in its form from which man first touched it--maybe you! What are its properties? How is one piece of matter different from another? How are they the same? What could be substituted for one thing to make up the difference for what is lacking in another?

I went on a serious search, the other day, for the place to find such a simple thing. I might have staked a claim, had I found it. In my search for graphite--I would think, not a rare mineral, I found that it is an exceedingly rare thing as things go. There are more rare geological finds, and people waste their lives trying to find the most rare of things, but try and find a commonplace thing! Try to--rather than spending pennies on its modified form--to get it raw.

That is a difficult thing indeed.

Now imagine, yet it is true, the many people who make a fair living from this thing that costs the consumer mere cents.

That is what is wonderful about capitalism!