It All Comes Down To Binder Clips And Bats

I’ve been watching a lot of How It’s Made because, well, I’m fascinated by how things are made. It’s almost hypnotic to watch assembly lines put together bottles of Avon bubble bath, monofilament light bulbs, jars of peanut butter and artificial limbs. Everything has a soothing rhythm to it which is both intriguing and calming.

A few weeks ago they did an episode on down comforters. There were machines to sort the feathers from the down, wash the down, weigh the down, insert it into the covers, sew the covers and add the “do not remove under penalty of law” tags. Then, at the very end, each comforter was laid on a light table and two women with badminton bats (!) hammered out the piles of down to make the comforter lie flat and even.

The other day they did an episode with holograms. I’m still not quite sure I understand the whole process because it was very complicated. It involved a lot of frikkin’ laser beams which couldn’t vibrate AT ALL so they were mounted on high tech steel tables which were in turn resting on high-tech air baffles. I swear to you I understood about every third word the dude said because it was all about tolerance bands and the physics of light waves.

Then at the very end they secure the holographic film between two panes of glass with binder clips. The same 12 for $2.99 binder clips I used to run around the office with, hanging from my shirt. (We always had to clip something an odd times.)

Since I’m getting all deep about things it just occurs to me that the whole truth of life is in this. No matter how complicated or involved a process seems, there is always room for the simplest element. In fact, the simplest element is often the most necessary component to success.