After our field trip to Belle Isle, my mind kept flashing back to our guest speaker’s description of what he did for his thesis. I found myself to be entranced by the idea of the rock cracking due to the subterranean forces at work. Over the course of millions of years, the granite slates that we had been standing on solidified and inched their way to the surface. The snippet of information that I found to be the most interesting came from his description of how the potholes were formed.
The thought of a pebble falling into a small hole, swirling around and eventually making room for a larger pebble until an almost perfectly spherical hole is cut in the granite amazed me. So much to the point where in the majority of my classes on Thursday and Friday, the thought wandered back to me at some point. I’m not entirely sure why. It could be because for the longest time, I had no idea what the holes were from. I think I assumed they were drilled in by humans for samples or something else of the sort. The spheres were too neat to be formed otherwise, right?
As I’ve reflected more on the creation of these potholes, I’ve come to realize that in the same way they are formed, organizations and human interactions are born and flourish. Whether it is social interactions or the sprouting of an individual organization, it all starts with one person as the grain of sand to make a bigger gap for others to fill. In our latest SEEDS meeting, we met with one of the people who had been with SEEDS the first couple years of its existence and was “instrumental in where SEEDS is today.” He described it as being a simple service project the first couple of years, and then after they realized its importance in the community, they worked to make it a lasting project—which was comparable to taking on another major according to him. The work and dedication he and others had to put in to make it a lasting project was the first step of erosion on the hard surface of the community. Without that drive, SEEDS wouldn’t be where it is today—an organization that keeps looking to give back and educate themselves and the community.
I think in the end, being the sand or the next pebble to fill the hole is what we all look for. We all look to make a difference by either starting our own pothole or making another more spherical on the large slabs of society. In that way, we are no different from the particles of earth floating down the river innocently looking for their place.