Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Thomas Edison was asked once, “What would you have done if you hadn’t discovered the lightbulb?” He quipped, “I’d be in the lab, and I certainly wouldn’t be talking to you.”
Edison knew he had it in him. He wasn’t leaving his lab until he extracted it. What was this knowing? Do you know you have “it” in you? Let me introduce you to a truth – scratch.
From scratch, from ground zero, all potentiality arises, and you will see your ideas and desires “wiggle” out of their hiding and into your hands. You must dig, or scratch. You cultivate knowledge by dabbling. You come back to your lab and redesign. You tweak. You return to the lab and ask, “Is this how I want it?”
If you’re not sure how you want it, it comes out unsure. Left unloved, unrealized, and dormant, it can run amok. But the creative genius harnesses what’s in them. They don’t emerge until “it” is discovered and carved out! Scratched out. I know you have it in you!
Geniuses understand the Scratch Principle. A creative pioneer goes into the pantry, and where your “average person” sees “average ingredients,” the pioneer sees “the makings” of something great. A creative genius, however, doesn’t look in the pantry. They start from scratch, designing something of great marvel in the void.
If you want something of significance, you need to know the ingredients of significance. The mortal marvels at scratch-starters. They credit a god in the sky, “talent,” or a genie in a bottle for mere human ingenuity–scratching, hunting, pecking, stumbling.
“How do we start, again?” asks the fool. “From scratch,” says the genius.
Puzzled, the fool replies, “How do I get me some of that scratch?” SMH