…and the pad stared back in contempt

The record expansion in the U.S. economy–which has almost capped the one decade milestone–is largely due to technology. Just as technology empowers people, it empowers entire economies. We all benefit when things can be done faster, cheaper, easier, and more efficiently. Well, almost all of us benefit. The slow, overpriced, cumbersome, and inefficient companies and people tend to fall by the wayside.

Welcome to evolution, baby.

Technological evolution is, though, a missed blessing sometimes. I had time to reflect on this when I found myself adrift at an airport with no (gasp!) computer at hand. A mountain of work was piling up, all of it writing chores, and the thought of spending a few idle hours while the work continued to mount was enough to drive me bonkers. There I was, losing an invisible battle as time ticked away, with no tools at hand with which to fight the war.

I did, as always, have a yellow legal tablet stashed away in my carry-on bag. But that’s for scribbling notes and such, not for any serious composition tasks. And yet, and yet…it’s all I had.

I haven’t confronted the task of writing anything long hand since college, when the hell-on-earth of three hour final exams with those diabolical blue books was unleashed. In modern times, I’m sure they let students use notebook computers. But in the Dark Ages, we’d all sit there and scribble and scrawl and erase and flail.

Long hand writing is something I always regarded as basically impossible (duress of final exams notwithstanding.) I bought my first typewriter way before I bought my first car, thanks to my father, who promised me any typewriter I wanted as long as I first learned how to type. Yes, outright bribery, which is the most effective type of education possible. If I recall correctly, that

Smith Corona (remember them?) “Corona-matic” weighed in at about $300 or so, which would be the equivalent of close to a cool grand these days.

Then, of course, word processors came along, thanks to the magic of Wordstar for DOS–which has yet to be improved on. Dad and I jumped on the word processing bandwagon with all due haste, although he preferred WordPerfect (traitor!).

Still, we both recognized that the very act of writing had changed forever. The speed of composition is an obvious factor. But, at least for me, the very approach to the task was changed. When writing by hand, or by typewriter, an outline generally had to be crafted first. Writing was too labor intensive of an endeavor to be trusted to mere spur of the moment composition.

The problem with outlines is that they limit the evolutionary potential of a composition. I like to switch gears and change course as a piece progresses. Can’t do that with an outline, really, though more technical pieces still have to be outlined no matter what.

Which is all well and good and (for me) very important…and all entirely moot when I found myself staring at that yellow composition pad in utter contempt at the airport.

The pad stared back. Also in contempt, I suspect.

Finally, though, I took pen in hand and, like a trooper on a forced march, took those painful first steps. I managed to get some work done, which is a reassuring fact at some basic, survival level. But I also managed to remind myself how lucky we are to have whiz-bang technology that takes the grunt labor out of so many thankless tasks.