In June 2001, BBC News broke a story about a watermelon farmer on Japan’s southwestern island of Shikoku who grew perfectly square watermelons.
How on earth do you grow perfectly square watermelons?
I get why he’d do it. Normal watermelons roll around in the fridge. They’re hard to hold when cutting. Square watermelons stack better and work better.
So how did he do it? He grew the melons in square glass containers. As the fruit grew, it shaped to the glass. At harvest, he broke the glass and took the fruit to market.
Our thought-patterns work like these glass jars. They shape our melons over time (pun intended). Ideas about who we are, what we can do, and the nature of the world around us slowly and subtly mold our minds, and by extension, form our lives. Our assessments of how good we are, how intelligent we are, how we rank ourselves socially, financially, relationally, and personally, shape our lives like glass shapes melons.
It makes me wonder: What thought-patterns are shaping my life?
