Pencil

According to the author, there is no single human on the planet who is a mastermind in the creation of a pencil. The point is that a pencil is made up of a variety of complex raw materials. Furthermore, various processes are involved in the assembly of a pencil, implying that no one individual has knowledge of the processes and raw materials required in the assembly of a pencil.

The author emphasizes how insignificant a single person’s effort is in terms of information. According to the poet, creating a pencil requires the participation of billions of people all over the world. For instance, coffee growers, miners, and millers are not aware that the contributing to making a pencil. Instead, they are experts at the level which they are working on and nothing more.

The reason why the worker says so is that at each level, people desire to give the best of their products but the pencil is produced by the by-products of each system of events. For example, the saw-dust from the millers. The pencil factory is properly run to make use of [products which could be waste from other plants.

There is neither a mastermind nor dictator forcing or directing everyone to do the particular jobs that are needed to make pencils. This is because the pencil is made from the invisible hand at work. It has been discussed later that a person’s contribution is too little to be calculated in pencil making.

He thinks that because many people believe that mails could not be efficiently be delivered by men acting freely because each person acknowledges that he lacks the know-how to do all the things need for mail delivery.