How to become part of something big.

A long time ago my grandfather told me story:

One day the king of Persia was bored. He sent his servents all over his empire to find a cure. But in the end they returned empty handed.

A year later a farmer entered the capital and went straight to the palace. He brought the king a gift to cure him from his boredom. The gift was a game named after the king. The Shah liked the game of chess very much and asked the farmer what he wanted as a reward. The farmer though for a moment and replied that he wanted one cereal grain on the first square of the chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth and so on...

The Shah laught and agreed with the terms of the farmer. But when they came halfway the chessboard there was no grain to be found in the whole empire to fulfill the demands of the farmer!

Exponential growth. Very powerful and funny story.

Yesterday I remembered this story and my mind began to wander. What if the real magic of my grandfathers story is not exponential growth of cereal grain but exponential sharing of a great story? What if everyone who reads this story shares it with some who share with others and so on......?

We live in Social Media Times and we can share words and stories endlessly. We can imagine the world and there are, in contast to the cereal grain, no limits to growth. This makes us part of something big. Unprecedented.

Do you agree?

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