A slender wooden instrument containing a graphite core with dark pigmentation is used to remember things, solve things, create something beautiful, or bring someone down. There are hundreds of types with various specialties and talents; each one is different, with miniature imperfections only it is aware of, and they would only come to your attention after investing time in it. A pencil is typically introduced during our first years of school; while learning to write, we use giant pencils, with lots of life to live, many things to write, and many memories to create. Has it ever occurred to you how similar we are to pencils?
A pencil’s lifespan varies on the journey it embarks, the same as humans. Some pencils get broken in half, forgotten in a drawer, or dropped in the hallway to be stepped on by hundreds of students. Similarly, we go through experiences that break us, lose touch with people who knew us best, or feel walked all over by people. While we’re young, we learn not to play too rough, or else we’ll break an arm and not write too hard, or our lead will break. At birth, we are unsharpened pencils; our parents raise us and begin sharpening us into a representative of our family. Sometimes we make mistakes, and our lead breaks, but we learn from it and are re-sharpened. Rarely does a pencil last for a very long time without aging, without having indents, or it gets sharpened to the very bottom where the pencil ends and the eraser begins. Likewise, some people never gain scars, and some gain new indents as they age. Sometimes, people make it to 103, like a miniature pencil with a tiny eraser, worn out and old.
Although we have much in common with pencils, one thing dramatically sets us apart: we write our own story, whereas pencils are forced to write someone else’s story. My note to the world is to live your best life and write your own story because you never know when you will run out of lead.
The style I went with was descriptive and metaphorical. While figuring out how I wanted to describe my note to the world, I remembered how for my college essay I wrote about an object, nail polish. I wanted to write about an object the majority of people are familiar with and compare it to something everyone can relate to. I brainstormed with several different objects that could capture a person’s life. As I listened to Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield, I was able to narrow it down to a pencil. My center of gravity, "We are living in a world of pencils," shows the comparisons made between humans and pencils throughout my writing and the idea that someone’s life can end as easily as it is to break a pencil. After I began writing I read the poem "Old Age" by Maxwell Bodenheim where he also uses concrete sensory details to visualize an abstract idea. The poem inspired me to include an abundant amount of detail, visceral, and literal ideas.