The Purple Crayon MARi Inspiration
Channel: John Carney
Date: 2015-11-23

http://mari.com

MARi and Harold and the Purple Crayon:

I’d like to share with you one of the key inspirations behind MARi.  It’s the story of Harold and the Purple Crayon.  If you are familiar with this story you will get the connection right way.   Harold and the Purple Crayon was written by Crockett Johnson and first published in 1955.  It’s the story about a young boy who wanted to go for a walk in the moonlight.  But he didn’t’ have moonlight or a path to walk on.  So he pulls out his purple crayon and draws a moon and then draws a path to walk on - ensuring that it is a straight path so that he can find his way back.  

Along the way he draws an apple tree and a dragon to guard the apples - but he gets little scared and with his crayon shaking he accidentally draws some water which he falls into - but then he draws a boat climb into.  As he’s trying to find his way back home he draws a mountain to climb up and can get a better view - falls off the mountain - but draws a balloon to get him safely back to the ground.  Throughout Harold’s journey he uses his purple crayon to navigate his way forward.  

And it’s our belief here at MARi that we are all born with a purple crayon and that we all have this incredible power inside of us.  But everyday life has a habit of causing us to forget this and when things get difficult it is easy to believe that life happens to us.

We created the MARi platform to be continuous reminder that we all have a purple crayon - that we all have the power to create and re-create our future.  Please join me and the MARi team as we create the future of a human operating system that never lets us forget that we have that power inside of us and that we always have with us our purple crayon.