Feb 22, 2024
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The way to create value in this world is to create things that are big and beautiful. The Builder and the Gardener go about this in different ways.
The Builder looks around and sees rocks of different sizes: things he can use to build. Some of them are small pebbles, and some are large boulders. He picks the biggest one he can feasibly move with his own strength and muscles it into position.
The Gardener, on the other hand, pays attention to the small things, carefully examining the ground at his feet.
The Builder has made considerable progress, with sweat on his brow. He looks over at the Gardener, who is still sorting through the pebbles with nothing to show for it.
“You’ll never make enough progress focusing on those pebbles, you’ve got to get stronger!” he calls out to the Gardener.
As he works, the Builder gets stronger and more clever. He is able to move bigger boulders, and use leverage to move them into position. He drops a hefty boulder into place and smiles at the beauty and scale of what he’s creating.
He glances over and sees, to his surprise, that the Gardener has created something, if not big, then at least beautiful. It’s smaller than the Builder could have lifted, but then again he has grown strong, and the Gardener hasn’t even broken a sweat. The Builder thinks to himself that maybe the Gardener got lucky, or was cheating.
The Builder works even harder; becomes even stronger. He glances over at his competition often, thinking he’ll catch the Gardener in the heroic act of building, to understand his secret. But he never catches him building. The Gardener seems to wander without purpose from point to point, almost like he’s playing.
The Builder works ever harder, getting stronger, more exhausted. But what the Gardener has created becomes bigger and bigger. Before the Builder knows it, the Gardener’s creation towers over the meager pile of rocks he had cobbled together.
“I give up!” the Builder cries, collapsing. “You’re obviously magic.”
“It’s no magic. It’s merely a secret. It’s a secret that anyone could see with their own eyes, if only they were patient enough.”
The Builder looks on, confused.
“When you look out around you, all you see are rocks. Rocks have no agency; they cannot change themselves. They need the effort of others to make them into something beautiful. A living thing has its own agency: a kind of internal magic. It is something that grows under its own power. When I look around me, I see that some of those ‘pebbles’ have the potential to be alive. Some of those ‘pebbles’ are acorns.
“Acorns are some of the most densely packed bits of potential in the universe. They have within them the capacity to grow into a mighty, beautiful oak tree. They are seeds of greatness. Acorns don’t need a gardener to grow; if the conditions are right they can do that all on their own. But they are more likely to grow, and they grow better, if they have a gardener looking after them.
“An acorn needs fertile soil, shade, and water. It needs to not be dug up by squirrels. But most importantly, acorns need space and time. My secret is that I know how to spot promising acorns that everyone else thinks are just pebbles. I can find the things that are not impressive today but one day might be. I invest in a number of different acorns, nurturing and protecting the ones that grow. I know that not all of them will become strong, but all I need is one of them to make it all worthwhile. And most of all I know that I must be patient. It will never feel urgent to plant an acorn, it will never feel like the obvious thing to do in that moment. The best time to plant an acorn is twenty years ago, but the second best time is now.”
“That sounds great for you,” the Builder says, “but I’m a builder, not a gardener.”
“All of us have the potential to be both builder and gardener. When we’re busy, when we need results as soon as possible, we only have the space to be a builder. But when we create the space and allow ourselves to be patient, even if just for a small fraction of our day, we create the possibility for the gardener within us to blossom.”
“How can I begin?”
“The first step is to know and share the magic word: ‘Acorn.’ When other Builders see you fussing with a pebble, they won’t understand why you’re wasting your time on something so small and not building. They might try to pressure you to build in that moment. But if they understand this magic word, when they ask you ‘Why are you bothering with that pebble?’ you can answer, ‘Because this is an acorn,’ and they can understand the magic you hold in your hand.”