An Obscure Sorrow
In the
style of John Koenig’s “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows”:
Thought-years
thot-yeers:
The
total mental labor that produced an artifact
Look around you. Pick up an object;
say, a pencil. Look at it. Note the details of its design. Somebody thought of
each one.
It has a six-sided cross-section.
Someone decided on six sides, not three or four or five or round. It is painted
black. Someone chose that shade. Printed along a side is the company’s name,
that pencil’s brand, some symbols and numbers. Someone chose each of those.
The eraser is navy blue. Someone chose
that color. The pencil is joined to the eraser by a metal band. The band has five
bands; green, yellow, green, yellow, green. Someone chose those colors. The
middle green band has ripples. Someone decided just how many.
Someone decided which kind of wood for
the pencil, and which rubber, and which mix of graphite and clay for the lead,
and which metal for the band.
And behind these recent designers are
older designers. Someone thought of marking paper with a mix of graphite and
clay. Someone figured out how to put that lead inside wood. Someone joined
rubber to it, for the first time.
These
ideas did not come of themselves. Someone thought them.
And
after these recent designers are the laborers, who also had to think. How to
mine the clay and graphite, how to mix and bind them; how to cut the wood and
put the lead in; how to carve an eraser and bind it to the pencil; how to paint
and print on the pencil’s side; and finally, taking that and many other pencils
to the store for you to buy.
Making
just that pencil required years of accumulated attention. Now look around some
more; what do you see? A cup, perhaps, or a pen, or a stapler, or a calculator,
or a shelf of books, or a computer…
Thought-years.
Thought-centuries. Thought-millennia and more. You are surrounded by an
invisible city of service.
Humanity
is superhuman.
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