I, Pencil
By Leonard Read
I am a lead pencil — the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.
Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.
You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery-more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, as a wise man observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”
I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe; a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me — no, that’s too much to ask of anyone — if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an aeroplane or a mechanical dishwasher because-well, because I am seemingly so simple.
Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realised that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the USA. each year.
Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye — there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labelling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser. Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.
My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the states to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!
The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions among my antecedents.
Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill’s power!
Don’t overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads of slats across the nation from California to Wilkes-Barre!
Complicated Machinery
Once in the pencil factory — $4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving parents of mine — each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop — a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this “wood-clinched” sandwich.
My “lead” itself — it contains no lead at all — is complex. The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth — and the harbour pilots.
The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow — animal fats chemically reacted with sulphuric acid. After passing through numerous machines, the mixture finally appears as endless extrusions — as from a sausage grinder — cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.
My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all of the ingredients of lacquer? Who would think that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil are a part of it? They are. Why, even the processes by which the lacquer is made, a beautiful yellow, involves the skills of more persons than one can enumerate!
Observe the labelling. That’s a film formed by applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins. How do you make resins and what, pray, is carbon black? My bit of metal — the ferrule — is brass. Think of all the persons who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make shiny sheet brass from these products of nature. Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel. What is black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story of why the centre of my ferrule has no black nickel on it would take pages to explain.
Then there is my crowning glory, inelegantly referred to in the trade as “the plug,” the part man uses to erase the errors he makes with me. An ingredient called “factice” is what does the erasing. It is a rubber-like product made by reacting rape seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulphur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is only for binding purposes. Then, too, there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy, and the pigment which gives “the plug” its colour is cadmium sulphide.
No One Knows
Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me?
Actually, millions of human beings have had a hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows more than a very few of the others. Now, you may say that I go too far in relating the picker of a coffee berry in far off Brazil and food growers elsewhere to my creation; that this is an extreme position. I shall stand by my claim. There isn’t a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how. From the standpoint of know-how the only difference between the miner of graphite in Ceylon and the logger in Oregon is in the type of know-how. Neither the miner nor the logger can be dispensed with any more than can the chemist at the factory or the worker in the oil field-paraffin being a by-product of petroleum.
Here is an astounding fact: Neither the worker in the oil field nor the chemist nor the digger of graphite or clay nor any who mans or makes the ships or trains or trucks nor the one who runs the machine that does the knurling on my bit of metal nor the president of the company performs his singular task because he wants me. Each one wants me less, perhaps, than does a child in the in first grade. Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants. I may or may not be among these items.
No Master Mind
There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.
It has been said that “only God can make a tree.” Why do we agree with this? Isn’t it because we realise that we ourselves could not make one? Indeed, can we even describe a tree? We cannot, except in superficial terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind is there among men that could even record, let alone direct, the constant changes in molecules that transpire in the life span of a tree? Such a feat is utterly unthinkable!
I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies-millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human masterminding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.
The above is what I meant when writing, “If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolise, you can help save the freedom mankind is unhappily losing.” For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand — that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding — then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free men. Freedom is impossible without this faith.
Once a government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn’t know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognises that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation’s mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of a faith in free men — in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity — the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental “masterminding.”
If I, Pencil, were the only item that could offer testimony on what men can accomplish when free to try, then those with little faith would have a fair case. However, there is testimony, galore; it’s all about us and on every hand. Mail delivery is exceedingly simple when compared, for instance, to the making of an automobile or a calculating machine or a grain combine or a milling machine or to tens of thousands of other things. Delivery? Why, in this area where men have been left free to try, they deliver the human voice around the world in less than one second; they deliver an event visually and in motion to any person’s home when it is happening; they deliver 150 passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours; they deliver gas from Texas to one’s range or furnace in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy; they deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian Gulf to our Eastern Seaboard — halfway, around the world — for less money than the governments charges for delivering a one-ounce letter across the street!
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organise society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.
atlas shrugs
Kofi Annan
![Kurdistan](http://web.archive.org/web/20071210210355/http://<a href="http//northerniraq.info" title="northern iraq"><img src="http://northerniraq.info/northlogo.gif" width="135px" height="68px" alt="northern iraq"><br>northern iraq </a>){kind=link}
Condi looks and acts like a Secretary of State like Arafat was a Nobel Peace Prize recipiant.
Posted by: earth56 | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 12:25 AM
the thing I just don't understand is, why doesn't Israel just tell Condi/Bush "No." ?
Posted by: Mega | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 01:10 AM
friends:
odd, isn't it.
condit is all upset about some jewish home building in jerusalem, to the point of lecturing israel about it, yet seems not to care a whit that the palestinian authority legislature is in the middle of declaring a policy of not conceding a square foot of jerusalem in the "peace talks."
maybe she sees no inconsistency in this at all.
all the while she flounces around like some distracted goose, no inkling that war stirs in the region. olmert has steered himself into an impossible fix pressured by the idiocy of condi, giving up everything there is to give up in advance of "negotiation," such that any stiffening of his resolve, and that is about all he can stiffen, most likely, means war. the arabs will not give up what they think they have secured, and they are bouyed by the support of a stupid world.
not a very encouraging situation.
by easter, things will be pretty grim.
john jay
Posted by: john jay | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 03:13 AM
John Jay, I agree 100 %. Israel has given up everything before the "negotiations" have even started. They are now backed in a corner which will be very hard to get out of.
Back in 2000-2001, at the height of the Internet frenzy, I had the good fortune to have a small 30-employee company consulting to tech firms. We weren't making much money, but we were part of the whole Internet hysteria. A buyer expressed interest in the company, and we went into negotiations. All I wanted to do was sell, at any price. On the first day of discussions I got a lowball offer that was maybe 10 % of what the company was worth. I immediately jumped on it and started offering this and that, and conceding this and that. My lawyer pulled me aside and said, politely, "Would you PLEASE STFU already. You don't get what you want out of a negotiation by desperately trying to get something at any price. So just keep your mouth shut. The longer this drags on, and the less you seem to want it, the better you'll do." I never said another word throughout the whole process - I left it to the lawyer and went off to do other things. At one point, I called the buyer and said "You know, I'm not sure I'm interested in doing this" and the offer immediately doubled. This is what the Arabs understand, and the Israelis do not. Israel needs to STFU - no more concessions, good will gestures, etc.
Israel must - MUST - stop letting the Arab wish-list harden any further into "givens". Jerusalem, refugees, and all the other manufactured Arab issues, have gone, in just a few short years, from wild-ass fantasies to shared assumptions about concessions Israel will have to make, or pay massively for not making. This is wrong.
Israel has got to get a handle on this. Olmert/Livi are waiting for the Bodyguard to come in and bail them out, except the Bodyguard is working for the Bully now. I don't think Israel quite grasps how much the US has turned on them and is now working at cross-purposes to Israeli needs and interests, and I can't understand why they're so blind about it - it's just denial, I guess.
Posted by: | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 12:05 PM
"Disrespect for the holy Koran is not now, nor will it ever be, tolerated in the United States"- that did it for me. This twit doesn't even know the first thing about the constitution.
Rice,this pathetic affirmative action case is long past her use-by date.
The whole system is f*kced and Bush sux, otherwise he would have got rid of her, long ago. You don't send a female, and especially not a coloured girl to deal with the Arabs. You just don't.
And don't scream 'racist' and throw hissy fits: real politic doesn't need PC, but hard nosed, ice cold resistance to Arab claims.
Posted by: sheik yer'mami | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 12:44 PM
Worthless government of ours, worthless lamebrain, contemptible, consistent only in selling out friends and trampling inconvenient little countries like Serbia just to show Islam we're a true pal.
Posted by: IGout | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 12:55 PM
pamela/friends:
i come back to these threads, time and again, because i like to see what people say and how the threads develope.
i find the remarks posted before & since my first contribution very cogent and insightful, especially those from the person who discussed the art of negotiation, and the tactic of "STFU already" during same. and, the observation that the arab's "wish-list" has become "givens" says it all, in a nutshell: these positions have "hardened," and they will not be backed away from.
there is nothing left, except the key to the washroom, for israel to give.
i think war comes from olmerts & rice's stupidity. at some point they have to back away from these concessions, and when that occurs, it is war.
i do not see any way around this?
anyone have any encouraging observations to make about the scenario i contemplate?
john jay
Posted by: | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 03:52 PM
I couldn't agree more, John Jay. (I posted the Negotiation post, but my name did not appear, for some reason). I think so many mistakes have been made by Israel in the past couple of years, that the only way to "get back to even" is a war. One which Israel might well lose, unfortunately. That is the price which must now be paid for the terrible mistakes and misjudgments the Israeli government, and the American government, have made the past few years. And, of course, it will not be Olmert or Livni or Rice who will have to pay the price for the astounding hubris and naivete both governments have shown toward the Palestinians and the middle east these last few years. It will be kids and young families, mostly. That is pathetic, and it didn't have to be this way. Israel has botched every single military, diplomatic, strategic, and public relations initiative it has encountered, for years. The net result is that the entire world, and even the Israelis, expect Israel to concede Jerusalem and also to make a terrible, costly deal to get the "refugee" mantra to stop. Israel will never get peace this way. Huge concessions such as these will egg on the Arabs; the rockets will be falling even as the keys to Jerusalem are turned over, and there will be a whole new wave of demands as soon as the Arabs have pocketed the first batch. This is a very desperate situation, which the U.S. is contributing to based on Condi/Bush hubris about splitting extremists and moderates, cozying up to the Saudis, and getting a safe passage route out of Iraq when the time comes. It will not work. The Bush Administration's strategy from the get-go to play games behind the scenes in the middle east has been a disaster - from its first day, up to the current hour. It is time for Israel to face the facts and get back to what it was at the beginning - not a location from which to trade stocks and invent new pharma products and go clubbing, but a refuge, redoubt, and final line of defense for the very vulnerable Jewish people. We are going to need that line of defense, and it is being given up without a fight, for reasons that are unclear, but which seem to boil down to stupidity, hubris, and fatigue. Meanwhile, the enemy is smart, realistically confident, and energized. It is time for someone to do the math on all this, put a stop to the pre-surrender, and get back in the fight. I do not think Israel has a lot of time left to make this choice. A year or two, at the most.
Mega
Posted by: Mega | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 04:26 PM
www.zoa.org provides relentless coverage of the numerous ways in which the PA has violated its obligations under the Road Map, such as stopping incitement in the schools and in the media, dismantling the terrorist groups, arresting their leaders and confiscating their weapons, etc. One detail ZOA mentions is that the PA has been doing far more building where they're not "supposed" to.
In the meantime, under the UN Charter, the terms of the British Mandate from the League of Nations are still in force, including the right of Jews to "closely settle" the land. Certain territories are not "occupied", but legally unallocated, because the Arabs refused to accept them in the 1947 partition. Israel has a better claim on these lands than any sovereign nation on Earth.
Case closed!
Posted by: Surak | Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 07:46 PM