The Pencil Principle

“I like to think of all of the people it takes to make a simple pencil.” – Kyle Christensen

The Pencil Principle

My friend Kyle is a deep thinker and gives me inspiration on a regular basis.  Such was the case as I walked past his office and found him waggling a wooden pencil back and forth between two of his fingers.  He was looking at it carefully and pondering.  Because he was clearly engrossed with such a simple object, I asked him about it.

“Have you ever thought about all of the people and effort it takes to make a pencil?” He said to me.

“No!” I replied.

“It’s an amazing demonstration of how reliant we are on other people!”  He continued.

Graphite was first discovered in the late 1500s in Borrowdale, in Northern England’s Lake District.  Supposedly, a storm blew over some trees and exposed a dull black material that the locals began using to mark their sheep because it made darker marks than lead.  Word of the find spread and soon people discovered they could cut the material and form it into sticks for writing.  Pencil graphite is mined in places such as the United States, Europe, China, Canada and Mexico now.  And, what about the wood that encase this graphite?

By the early 1900s pencil demand caused manufacturers to need more pencil wood.  So, they turned to California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they found Incense Cedar, a species that grew in abundance and made superior pencils. California Incense-cedar soon became the wood of choice pencil makers around the world and to ensure availability, timber companies harvest their crop on a sustained-yield basis.  That means these forests will continue to provide wood as a perch for erasers and pencils for generations to come!

Those little erasers, attached to the end of a pencil, come from synthetic rubber and/or natural rubber from trees.  Rubber Trees are native to rainforests in the Amazon region of South America, including Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. They’re trees generally found in low-altitude moist forests, wetlands, riparian zones, and forest gaps.

“I love pencils!”  Kyle said.  “They remind me of our need for cooperation and how interconnected our world really is.  Can you imagine a world without cooperation?  Even the simplest items, like this pencil, would become impossible to make!  It takes hundreds or thousands of people working together to make this one, little tool!”

I looked at the pencil in Kyle’s hand with a new reverence, knowing that it was now the embodiment of one of life’s most important principles.  The Pencil Principle reveals that cooperation with other people, societies, groups and nations gives everyone an enhanced and improved life.  Cooperation is necessary if we are to create wonders available only through shared dreams and work.

Share your dreams and expertise with others.  Be inclusive with other people.  Allow them to help make your dreams and abilities larger.  Work with others to bring your dreams into being.  Always remember that you’re part of something special, something much larger than yourself, our shared universe.

Keep a pencil on your desk.  Remember and live the Pencil Principle.