Jason Quick
AGS Laboratories Director
Here’s a simple fact: Diamonds are primal. People don’t merely love diamonds. We lust after them. Diamonds evoke powerful, raw emotions, beyond reason and rationality. When we catch the dream, we can’t let go. Anyone working in this crazy, beautiful industry knows what I’m talking about. Diamonds are mirrors to our soul.
So why do we obsess about diamonds? What drives the passions diamonds evoke? The longer I work in the industry, the more these are the questions that inspire me to keep going. As much as I love diamonds, I’m fascinated by people even more. We’re strange, wonderful creatures. On the one hand, we appear to be driven by logic, rules, and good planning, but the truth is we’re not, and diamonds remind us of this truth. Diamonds speak an ancient language and the secrets they speak are beyond verbal understanding.
Approaching diamonds from a purely rational, scientific point of view misses the point. You will gain knowledge on the path, but the truth will elude you.
We love diamonds because of what they are. They communicate at deep, primal levels, that no words could hope to touch.
Being an animal, we fundamentally understand the food chain and our place in it. In the world of rock, there’s also a food chain. In the struggle for survival, stones are crushed, pulverized, and eroded into nothingness. Soft stones fade, hard stones endure. Impervious, immortal, and all powerful—one rock is harder than them all. This stone is diamond—the undisputed king of the earth, a god among mortals.
If you had never seen a diamond, what would be your expectation of the baddest, meanest, pulverizer in the galaxy? The stone that makes all other rocks bleed and crumble into nothingness. If I had never seen the champ, I think I would expect it to be twisted, dark, and gnarly. Scary, even.
And here we arrive at the absolute essence of what makes a diamond a diamond.
Among the multitudes of rock, very rarely, we find some that are significantly different than the others. They flicker, shine, and sparkle. Dancing light delicately moves through these transparent wonders, and we can’t stop staring. These are the rare, beautiful gems that captivate and mesmerize as they play with light.
The language these natural beauties speak is also primal and doesn’t need explaining. Light is safety, comfort, and warmth. Light is life. Light is love. Light is pure joy.
And among these competing angels of the rock kingdom, the maximum points go to the purest of the pure, the extremely rare gems, where all visible light passes unimpeded. Of course, I’m again talking about diamond, the rock goddess of light.
Like diamonds, we humans represent the extreme ends of the scales, manifesting polar opposites. Masculine and Feminine. Rational and Primal. Beauty and the Beast.
Diamonds are extreme and singularly unique. They represent eternity, life, and love.
When you’re looking at a diamond, what you’re seeing is yourself.
Passion. Joy. Commitment.
Diamonds are reflections of our soul.