Secret Gifts You Give

Look carefully at enough architecture around the globe and you will notice a pattern. There are patterns everywhere. Whether its this panel from a mosque in Paris, the curtain wall of a downtown skyscraper or your bathroom floor, architects and builders cover structures with geometric designs. It's as if a few thousand years ago someone started The Pattern Project and said, "Here's a circle, a square and a triangle. Go out there and see how many permutations you can make." It's as if countless artisans in all times and all places heeded the call and went mad with delight about what they could shape with only a compass and a straight edge. The results are magnificent and there's no end in sight. Without knowing it, each exploration of pattern added to the global treasury of knowledge and wonder. With each new permutation of design, every designer spontaneously enriched the world storehouse of wisdom.

These secret contributions aren't limited to geometric patterns. Whatever you do each day—cook, write, heal, inspire, facilitate, organize, or one of countless pursuits—you are participating in an ongoing project that is deepening and expanding human possibilities. What you discover as the years pass is forming and reforming the world in seen and unseen ways. It grows from knowledge unearthed by anonymous ancestors in the murky beginnings of time and extends through anonymous descendants in the unforeseeable future. Whatever you do, you are not alone in this. You are a member of a lineage that has been pursuing knowledge in your field for generations. No contribution you make, however small it seems, is lost. Every nuance of knowledge enhances the collective awareness of humanity making its way through the world.

As you go about your day, notice how the fruits of this global knowledge project pervade every place you go, every object you use and every person you meet. Notice the multitude of contributions of know how you have made and are making to your home, workplace and community. Notice how the world is made of the patterns interweaving with patterns and feel you connection to the unfolding creation.