2023 is a pencil year, in conjunction with my new planner notebook lifestyle. Upon making this decree, I realized all we had in the house was:
an off-brand yellow stick that doesn’t want to sharpen
a beautiful birch wood number from a hotel in Barcelona
(souvenir display only)a perfect black Ticonderoga with an excellent eraser
I’d pinned all my hopes on the sleek Ticonderoga, so of course I lost it—attachment energy always works against you. So I was struggling through my days with the off-brand yellow, hacking at it with a broken plastic sharpener, finally succumbing to a joyless dull lead point. I almost stocked up when I was at Staples picking out a planner, but a monolith of yellow unsharpened Ticonderogas didn’t feel right.
I write in cursive or all caps. Cursive was a big part of third, fourth, even fifth grade when a classmate worried that I would get points off a paper for drawing my capital G “wrong”. Shout out to whoever that was, but Mr. Shaw subtracted no points. I love cursive because it flows out of my hand faster than individual letters, I can feel the speed of my thoughts in the slant of the words on paper. Sometimes I’ll look back and have to decode my own messy scribble, a reward in and of itself when I finally discover what I meant to say. A lyft driver told me recently that among other things, her son was not being taught cursive in school. This is something I guess I can understand, it’s better they’re taught to type (although I learned that alongside cursive), yet I can’t help but lament cursive as a lost art.
I went a couple weeks without a good pencil option, searching for my lost black Ticonderoga, eyeing the Barcelona pencil as a possible recruit. Then I found myself begrudgingly at Target, buying a last minute cast iron pan to make my dad a specific birthday cake. That thing happened that always happens at Target, where you start remembering all the little items you’ve wanted for a while. I found a box of hibiscus tea and micellar water, before marching to the check out line. It was there, sidling along the grab-and-go shelves that I saw the most perfect pack of pencils, a multicolored set of candy striped Ticonderogas topped with matching erasers. AND they were pre-sharpened, which means I have some time to find the metal sharpener that I know is somewhere.
Buying this 10 pack of pencils is a tangible affirmation of abundance, as well as a practical tool. As I carried the pencils home, I began think about the kids that don’t have to erase their many attempts at cursive lettering. This slow departure from the tangible world has picked up speed and as we submerge more fully into the tech sector, we run a great risk of losing out on these really simple pleasures.
A degree of panic has manifested around the topic of AI. News anchors ask English teachers anxious questions about cheating as if it’s never been done before. Like any new thing, we can easily veer into worry, churning in the murky vastness of what if. I’ll make no major assumptions about Chat GPT, but I’m curious whether this is a turning point. Will students hand off the heavy lifting of writing to their computer, allowing that muscle to atrophy?
I think writing is one of the few things about the education system that we should keep and even expand. This is coming from someone who dropped out of school twice (2nd and 9th) and bowed out of the traditional 4 year college situationship. I’m the first person to find the holes in what we’re taught.The standardized method reining over industrialized learning isn’t working. But writing stands out as a very personal channel for expression, comprehension and documentation. It is a means to discovering who you are.
Supporters of Chat GPT say it can be utilized as a starting point for writing, which I understand can be helpful if you’re already working in a field that requires almost automated content. I know that right now, AI is an aggregator of information that’s already free floating in the collective internet consciousness. One could argue that we are mostly aggregators, but the process of digesting information is unique to each of us. Carving out our own voice is something that we can’t expect outside forces to do. Our schemas, personal history and cognitive quirks create an imprint of humanity that we need to maintain.
Over the years, I’ve discovered I best digest information by etching it into a notebook in loopy cursive. I could recognize my handwriting in a stack of papers. Because of this, my thoughts are recognizable to me. This is just a small part of what we stand to sacrifice by embedding with the powers of AI ambiguity. I see potential for AI in our world, I just wish it was introduced with more intention.
As educators attempt to combat the Chat GPT disruption, I fantasize about a possible outcome. It’s a funny one, where we are forced to reverse the advancements of tech in the classroom. Ditch the times new roman, 1.5 spaced 12 point font. Bring back the essays written in cursive during class without a techie device on hand. A painful period of adjustment would surely take place, but just maybe there would be a return to self. Would deep work occur, without a phone nearby to distract? In my fantasy, this harrowing space of singular focus has a side effect: a stronger connection with our inner world, the quiet reserve that can be easily pushed aside by the seemingly limitless internet. Suddenly the generation born into a pace obsessed, tech-centric society becomes attuned with the stillness that fosters our genius. Global priorities shift as the “manual alphas” (the media’s title for the pencil and paper kids) become world leaders. They remain steadfast in their relationship with this elusive inner nature. Limiting systems are dismantled. Sustainability is earnestly sought in all forms. We navigate toward the slow unfolding of tender existence.
You can blame this pipe dream on the great amounts of time spent at bookstores and libraries when I was little. Thank my mother with her boundless appetite for words. She explained that answers lay in the shelves, that the divine spoke to her through the pages of new books. I’d watch as she’d select a book at random, open it with reverence and find a message speaking directly to her in the sentence under her gaze. The thing about this method is you need to spend time amongst the books. It’s similar to tarot, a comfort must be developed with deciphering the unknown.
This morning I searched for answers in the pages of The Essential Rumi, a book that my parents loved so much, they sent one to every branch of the family for Christmas in the late 90s. My copy is from a dusty box marked give away found in my grandparent’s garage. Rumi’s words are white hot tea that resonate across the centuries. I opened just looking for a bit of guidance for the day ahead and found
Listen to the prophets, not to some adolescent boy
The foundation and the walls of the spiritual life
are made of self-denials and disciplines
Stay with friends who support you in these.
Talk with them about sacred texts,
and how you’re doing and how they’re doing,
and keep your practices together.
For me, it’s a stunning reminder to stay committed to structures I’ve designed for this year of work. It’s a call to recognize ourselves in those around us and cultivate our connections with people who help us attune to that inner cosmos. If the concept of spiritual life seems far away, I’d argue that any form of passion that you feel deeply is a thread to the divine. If we can entwine our body, mind, soul with these joyous tethers it will always bring forth the richest core of experience.
I’ve long been wary of false gods, the adolescent boys of whatever industry or scene holding sway over the current cycle of adoration and hysteria. Whatever originates from this corner sucks power from other people. It all becomes a contest with your attention as the reward. We spend so much time in the virtual world tailored for us by an algorithm, we’re programmed to think coincidences are normal. Of course something showed up that I was just talking about, that’s how it goes. Soon we forget the magic of existing, even as we are dealt daily reminders of our connection to all that is.
We pull free of this trap by exploring blatant conversations with the divine. We ask within and keep showing up.
Today I took the colorful pencils and put them in my grandfather’s iron mug, but first I removed all the pens that don’t work. There has to be space for the bounty that already exists within our realm. I set the mug on my desk, making it part of my working altar. I went around the house, gathering the scattered Micron pens that I treasure. Now when I look over at the mug on my desk, I know I am being given exactly what I need. It’s all right here. I am reminded to accept nothing less.
That’s all for today.
xx
James