the corner office : Spring cleaning

Spring cleaning

I'm doing a major clean-up/purge of my junk at home, and as I sift through everything, I'm having a royal procession down memory lane. I'm finally throwing out the last of my study notes from my BCom degree, over a decade old now. I never regret having moved into IT but I do often have a slightly bittersweet feeling when I think that there were good things about the profession I originally trained for, that I do miss.

What makes it hard to throw away some of these old notes, which I know I'll never need or use again, is just remembering the amount of sweat and effort I put into them. So neat, so tidy, so unlike the half-hearted scrawls that pass as my study notes these days. I want to keep those old notes as a reminder of my former uber-diligent obsessive-compulsive self, but ultimately, they're just wasting space. It's time to Let Them Go.

I will say this, though. I think in our modern world of computers, printers, scanners, keyboards and mice and monitors, we've gained convenience and all sorts of good things, but we've also lost something. The bland uniformity of fonts can't match the expressiveness of handwriting, the bland percussive smoothness of typing on a keyboard and clicking mouse buttons just isn't the same as the tactile magic of writing, and working with paper.

Sounds rather naff, I know. But still.

{2004.09.03 02:01}

Comments:

1. sandy (2004.09.03 - 10:31) #

I hear you. Hubby uses his palmtop for everything now that he is confined to the building site and his van for an office. When I ask him to write a birthday card (or a cheque or whatever) he finds it a real struggle, just cos his handwriting is so untidy now and writing just doesn't come naturally anymore.

Saying that though, he works with someone who believes it to be more professional to provide handwritten letters and invoices to customers!!

2. Ben Poole (2004.09.03 - 11:36) #

Agreed; my handwriting has definitely suffered as a result of all this 'puter tomfoolery. That said, getting hold of a really nice pen and some nice paper is splendid (cf. vowe's posts about Moleskin!)

3. Colin (2004.09.03 - 23:22) #

These days the only time I do any extended bouts of writing is when I write exams, and every time I sit down to write one, I end up getting the most godawful cramps in my hand. It got so bad that the last year or two I make a point of doing some assignments and work on paper, just to keep my fingers and wrist 'trained' :)

4. Senkwe (2004.09.07 - 11:23) #

heh, lazy buggers :-) My handwriting, whilst never having been a thing of beauty, really hasn't suffered. By the way, it would be interesting to see if this trend continues if ever the TabletPC takes off.