Hi, my name’s Patrick, and I’m just a pencil. Actually, I’m not even a pencil yet, but I will be soon.

It only takes a few ingredients to make me, but I can’t make myself. Fortunately, I have control over thousands of people who are going to bring me to life. Once those people have made me, I’ll go and live at somebody else’s house.

The best part about it – none of the people that I’ll use to bring me to life will ever even meet each other or see what they’ve collectively created. Many of them live on the opposite of the planet to each other. In fact, they can even be made to kill each other at a moment’s notice.

My plan might sound ridiculous or even impossible, but I assure you – it works. You might consider me obsolete, but many people need me.

Besides, I may control people, but I’m no master manipulator. I don’t need to lie to achieve my end goal. It’s the manipulators that exploit the same interdependent nature of humanity that you ought to be worried about.

Anyway, enough about your problems (pencils have their own problems). I’m going to give you an insight into just how many people I currently have under my rule.

The Building Blocks of My Life

Before I can transform from my potential state into my physical form, I need to gather my ingredients. Specifically:

• Graphite powder: My lifeline, like ink is to pens and blood is to humans. It allows me to make my mark on paper and the world.
• Clay powder: A core element of my immune system. My graphite powder is too vulnerable and weak without it. With it, I can live for longer and make an even bigger impact.
• Cedar wood: My skin and bones. My armour. It keeps me light and quick on my feet while protecting my graphite powder.
• Paint: Even pencils have style, although my coat is mainly to make sure you find me attractive. After all, I don’t intend to stay with the suckers I use to bring me to life.
• Synthetic rubber: We all make mistakes, and pencils are no exception. Unlike you, I can just rub mine out and pretend they never happened.
• Aluminium: I’ll use this sturdy and lightweight alloy to keep my synthetic rubber attached to my body at all times – I can’t cover my tracks if I lose it.
• PVA: You think doping is unique to your world? Humans and their autonomy illusion (lol). Judge me how you like, but this glue will give me lasting strength – honest.

Once the building blocks of my life have arrived at the resurrection centre, which you may know as a ‘pencil manufacturer’, I’ll be out into the world in no time.

But getting my building blocks together is far from straightforward. I’ll need a lot of people to do the dirty work.

Graphite Powder

I’ll source my lifeblood, my graphite powder, from a relatively small (let’s keep things discreet) mining operation in China’s Shanxi province.

This particular mine isn’t well regulated, so I can get my lifeblood for next to nothing. The local environment will be largely destroyed, and a few people will die. But – most people will survive with the long hours, so the losses are minimal.

It’ll take around 300 of you to run this particular mining operation that I need for my graphite powder. It might sound like a tall order, but we’re just getting started.

Before my lifeblood reaches the resurrection centre, I’ll need about 150 of you to retrieve the graphite powder from the mine and take it to a storage facility. Then, another 50 of you at a different location will mix the proprietary carbon grades – I don’t settle for anything but the best when it comes to my life juice.

Once it’s refined, I’ll get about 15 more of you in Beijing to organise the transportation of my graphite to the resurrection centre in Bavaria, Germany (which has a solid reputation for its pencil resurrection skills). I’ll have at least 50 people waiting at the centre for its arrival.

So, I’m going to need a minimum of 565 people to get my lifeblood. What do you think, doable? It gets more complicated yet.

Clay Powder

Things don’t get any easier at any point on my journey to actualisation, so let’s step on the accelerator. I’ll need a team of 250 people to mine clay, an essential element of my immune system, from Washington County in Georgia.

As I don’t settle for substandard clay, I’ll have it refined and processed by a team of 120 of you. Then, I’ll have the clay sent to Texas so that 50 more of you can mix the clay with immunity-boosting additives. 12 different people in Texas can then organise the transportation of my clay to the resurrection centre from their distribution store.

Looks like I’ll need at least another 432 of you for this step.

Cedar Wood

I’ll source my armour from Vestland in Norway from a logging operation with about 200 employees. I’ll then get 100 or so people to cut the cedar wood I need into planks, then another 75 people to cut those planks into thin slats.

I’ll make sure the 20 people at the distribution depot send the very best slats to the resurrection centre, where the strongest one will become a part of my physical form.

An extra 395 people required here.

Paint

Everybody likes a nice coat! And my coat will make sure that the person I choose takes me back to their home, where I will live out the rest of my days making my mark on the world.

I’m doing you guys a favour here and opting for a non-oil-based paint. I need the oil industry for other things anyway. I’ll instead go for iron oxide pigments from India with an operation of about 250 people.

I’ll need 150 of you in Germany to bind the pigments together with various other solvents and additives, then another 75 people to package the paint and test it for quality control. My coat needs to be beautiful if I’m to attract the best of you, apparently. Another 20 of you can handle the transportation of my coat to the resurrection centre.

So that’s an additional 495 people. This is starting to stack up.

Synthetic Rubber (Eraser)

I’ll need 250 of you in Louisiana to manufacture styrene-butadiene rubber. I won’t get into the details of how you obtained this polymer, but it involved about 1,000 people throughout the entire world in the oil industry.

Once manufactured in Louisiana, 150 people will process that rubber into a mouldable compound at a separate processing plant in the same state. Over in Indiana, I’ll make 50 of you shape the rubber into my eraser, which will then be sent to the resurrection centre.

Phew. 1,450 people needed for this step.

Aluminium (Ferrule)

The aluminium I need to attach my eraser will be made from bauxite ore, sourced from a mining operation of 300 people in Western Australia. 200 of you will process that bauxite ore into alumina, then 150 of you will smelt the alumina into aluminium metal using electrolysis. It’ll take another 100 people at an extrusion plant to make the aluminium suitable for my ferrule, and another 50 people to actually shape the ferrule, which will be sent to the resurrection centre.

800 people in total just for my aluminium.

PVA

Finally, for my lasting strength, I need my glue. This is a delicate process, probably the most difficult of all so far, so I’m just going to speed through it. I’ll need petrochemical feedstock suppliers, chemical manufacturers, polymer manufacturers, additives suppliers, and distributors to get involved before the PVA is ready for the resurrection centre.

In total, I’ll need to control at least 950 of you spread throughout the world to perfect this step.

I take doping very seriously.

What’s the Grand Total?

So, how many people do I need to assemble into a team to make sure I go from potential to real?

I’ll need around 5,087 of you to be directly involved in the process of making sure I realise my potential. And for my plan to work, most of those people will never even meet each other or see me. Call me dark, but I like to know I can pull the plug on the entire thing whenever I like.

Speaking of being dark – I’m lying to you. In order for me to become real, I’m going to have to control way more than just 5,087 of you.

Those 5,087 are relatively easy to point out. But what about all the equipment suppliers for the mines? Any idea how many people it takes to make excavation tools? I have seven ingredients – heavy machinery has a lot more.

I also use people all over the world. How many people do you think it takes to transport all my ingredients and their raw materials from their various origins to their countless destinations before they end up being a part of me?

We haven’t talked about all the testing and quality control I require, from the consistency of my clay powder to the toxicity of my rubber and paint. And then there’s packaging – I don’t settle for anything. I have entire teams of branding ‘experts’ and marketing personnel making sure my packaging meets my extremely high standards.

If I’m being honest without giving too much of myself away, I utilise tens of thousands – if not millions – of you to make sure I become a reality.

In fact, nobody escapes my plan. You are all intricately interconnected in every process in the world, including my creation.

You just don’t seem to realise it.

My Outcome

I didn’t turn out quite as special as I’d hoped I would. I was sold as part of a multipack of 50 pencils, with my individual value totalling a whopping 20 cents.

All those people contributed to my life, and I’m available for 20 cents. The world we share is amazing when you really think about it.

I’m just a pencil. I was used for about five minutes before my owner snapped me out of frustration, and that’s my life over.

Perhaps I have less control than I thought. Perhaps it’s you who had the real control all along.

You humans are fascinating. Collectively, you do absolutely mind-bogglingly amazing things. Yet very few individuals seem to really appreciate their contribution, the interconnectedness of their world, or their interdependence on each other.

Most people seem to equate their personal worth with how much they own and what other people can see. Strange really – eight billion people hopelessly dependent on each other without realising, yet they can turn on each other in a heartbeat with no idea of what’s at stake.

The next time we’re trying to pin the world’s problems on one person or group of people, we might want to realise that the perception of human autonomy is an illusion – a dangerous one at that.

And just because we take our lives for granted doesn’t mean there’s isn’t a lot to lose.

This article was inspired by the perspectives and principles of Monothology, a grassroots science-based philosophy that peels back the layers of our true reality and dispels the human autonomy illusion.