As humans we give our hearts and minds over to the stimuli that we observe for better or for worse in terms of results and consequences. I don’t know when I consciously started to “brown bag” my lunch on a daily basis. It didn’t happen over night. Like Rome, my habit wasn’t built in a day. For whatever numerous aspects of my life which contributed to this habit, there is one outcome which I am glad has happened.
The Apple
The apple I happened to be eating for my morning snack was special. It was like no other apple I found until then. The apple I held in my hand had a destiny beyond the normal apple. The normal apple as we all know comes from the supermarket, just like the cheese, and the ingredients for the beautiful hand crafted wrap I happened to have made for myself that day. Honestly, the apple actually comes from a tree. It is picked by an immigrant migrant worker who examines it to put it in a bushel that he or she carries on his or her back. The apple is then sent for inspection where it gets a little sticker of approval. Then, only the masters of the fruit supply chain know how it gets from the orchard through seven states and into my local grocery store. I know why it was in my brown bag. It made it’s way there because I felt like eating an apple.
The apple I was eating was not too ripe, not to raw. Since it was a golden apple, it wasn’t too our and not too sweet. It was good. I ate the apple and and I felt good that I had consumed something relatively healthy to satisfy my craving for some organic sugar in the morning.
The Apple Core
As I took bites, the juices flowed down my chin and on to my hands. This is not entirely new feeling when biting into a juicy apple, but I distinctly remember pausing. As a drop of juice fell down to my desk, I stopped to think. As most things edible in the developed world, especially from nature, the apple’s mass was on it’s way out of it’s life as an apple and on it’s way to being digested through my body and ending up in the plumbing system of the District of Columbia.
As I continued to eat, I bit closer and closer to the core. I tried to stay away from the seeds even while I ate because I know from past experience seeds aren’t too tasty. I paused again. This time I stopped because the hollow core was relatively expansive compared to other apple’s I had eaten.
The Apple Seed
This apple was special. Inside was a chamber of secrets. The core had an opening through which I sighted my find. Growing in my apple, there was a sprouting seed. This sprouting seed couldn’t wait to planted in the soil. It wanted to grow into a tree. It didn’t want to wait for the natural cycle of things. It wasn’t going to follow the destiny of all other seeds that resided in the apples at the super market. This seed was going to be different.
When I painstakingly extracted this delicate sprouting seed, I couldn’t help but be overcome with an indescribable feeling which gave me goosebumps. I held in my hand something so small that it fit on my finger tip. Something moved me to record the image. I used what I could to capture it’s beauty. Ironically the Apple iPhone couldn’t compare to the optical ability of the scanner in my office.
The Apple Seed
This image has inspired me to create a brand identity for one of my company’s future products and to apply a metaphor of spreading seeds of empowerment. Nothing so simple, yet elegant could have crossed my mind. A handful of us around the globe are working on a project which we hope will empower local, regional, and global markets to be more equitable to people through the democratizing element of the Internet.
Such is the beauty of God. Thanks, God.
