Image by Lisa Yarost, via Flickr Creative Commons
From the outside of a chrysalis, it looks like the caterpillar has created a peaceful, snug little room in which to rest before emerging as a butterfly.
The truth is far more dramatic – radical, even.
Like most of us, caterpillars spend the caterpillar portion of their lives growing. As they grow, they shed their old skins, and become slightly larger, slightly different versions of their pre-growth selves. Then one day, something tells them that simply shedding the old skin for a larger version is not going to do. Something tells them that what they require is a grand, brilliant and utterly seismic shift.
You and I know what’s coming, but maybe the caterpillar doesn’t. Certainly her caterpillar cohorts don’t, and they don’t understand her restlessness.
“Just shed that skin like always,” they tell her. “You’ll get bigger and bigger. One day, we’ll be huge – the largest caterpillars to roam the land. We’ll devour mighty oaks in one chomp!”
She’s not interested in that, though. She has this idea that things could be really different. Really different.
So instead of shedding her skin for a new one that’s more or less the same, only larger, she builds herself a safe place to create something almost inconceivable.
Inside, everything breaks down. Literally.
Her legs and antennae and her hungry little munching mouth all break down. For all practical purposes, the caterpillar is dead – toast. Or, more accurately, soup. What’s left is a formless ooze that contains the essence of what it means to be a caterpillar, which happens to be identical to the essence of what it means to be a butterfly.
It’s absolutely not that remarkable. It happens every day. It may be happening just a few feet or yards from where you are sitting right now. But try telling that caterpillar how ordinary it is.
Try telling the butterfly that what happened to her was run-of-the-mill.
Fables are usually packed with a point, and this one is no different. The lesson here is that remarkable, unforeseeable change is both deeply meaningful and entirely achievable.
That’s the standard we’ve set for ourselves at Paperkite Creative Communications. A few of us have been working behind the scenes – in a chrysalis, if you will – brainstorming, dreaming and planning. Over the couple weeks, we’re going to introduce ourselves in a bit more depth and explain more about our vision.
We hope you’ll follow. And we hope you’ll add to our momentum.