Small is Big

While working with one of my wafers yesterday, I felt a very sudden, very localized shooting pain on my left index finger. On closer inspection, I didn’t notice anything particularly wrong. I touched my thumb to it and there was an agonizing surge of pain again. I was in the yellow Lithography room. I stepped out into a room with normal lights to look even closer and then I spotted it. A very small, sharp and thin piece of silicon had penetrated my glove and pierced my skin. I had to use my lab tweezers to ease out the fragment and I could feel the instant relief, accompanied by a miniscule drop of blood. And then it struck me. How such a small, seemingly insignificant piece of material could make such a difference  in my comfort level. And how there could be no relief till I was rid of it from my skin. It is ironic that this simple concept defines my career... how I work with the miniature stuff and hope that they create a disproportionately large impact. And how this analogy applies to all of us in the grand scheme of things. How small things have big impacts, be it gestures, words or incidents. How something surreally small can evoke the big emotions from us. It’s along the lines of the “Less is more” concept. This is one of life’s open secrets. And I guess it’s up to us to make at least the small efforts wherever we need the big returns. Small is big.