I was a little beforehand. My initial thought was to get my corporate taxes off to my accountant this week. Done and over with, then onto the next step to shut things down. Except, I need two items of information, one shows up in a week or so, and the other (which might be optional) shows up at the beginning of August. But I did get lots of stuff organized, and have identified a stack of paper about 6 inches high that can get shredded.
One of my recently retired buddies had been going through the detritus of a long career, getting rid of materials that are no longer needed. One thing was a set of Oracle reference manuals that have been out of date for some time. The other was the many notebooks. He shredded many bags of paper, and digitized a small number of pages.
I remain amazed at the things that turn up from various hiding holes. One thing is a notebook dating from early 2011, during my time at Talisman (now Repsol). There's still some empty pages at the back, and a section of personal notes, so I don't want to toss it out, but then, I have many empty notebooks. Pity my handwriting was never good, and hasn't improved over the years. I'll have to take a better look and make a shred or just recycle decision.
One of the things that is annoying me about Facebook is the ads. Currently showing up a lot is a supposed replacement for a pad of paper. How it differs from an iPad, I'm not sure; I don't look at the advertising that closely. But a pen / pencil and a pad of paper, and progenitors such as chalk and slate, have been essential tools aiding how people think for millennia. You'd think it would be perfected by now.
I guess the problem is that people think differently, and have different sorts of problems. An artist's sketch book is quite different than a writers notebook, and the shopping list of things to pick up on the way home is quite different than both. It's a very personal choice. I know people that totally geek out on pens and paper, and I don't get it. Sure, some pens are better than others, but I haven't bought a pen in decades. Just looking as I type, I can see 4 pens lying loose on my desk, and there's a container of a dozen or more in a box. Many of them probably don't work.
And yet, what do I actually use a pen for now? Mainly scribbling notes about photo image numbers, or figuring out the amounts of money to move around to pay bills on line. For a while I was documenting various photo shoots, capturing what I'd done, what I learned, but the most recent one was about 4 months ago, and the ones before that were during our New Zealand trip.
I can type far more quickly (and legibly) than I can write, but there is something visceral about actually writing with your hand that helps to make memories. They say that handwriting reveals personality beyond what the words say, and that might be true. I'm trying to think where I was when I saw a young person being asked to sign some paperwork, and they printed their name. People used to take the time to actually develop a signature, which derives from placing a stamp or seal on a page.
It used to be a common thing to see someone reading or writing in a notebook while in a coffee shop. Now it's a laptop, and I doubt they are doing anything as meaningful as writing or thinking. I suspect they are browsing Tictok or watching cat videos as they pretend to work.
Writing is an aid to memory, and is one of the foundational skills to a civilized society. Yet even with it, we're struggling. We were chatting with some friends on the weekend. One of the topics of conversation was shows we had watched as we went through the pandemic. All of us had trouble remembering the names of the various shows, or who was in them. At one point several of us had our phones out looking up information.
Has it come to this? That our memories are so bad we can barely converse without a phone to hand to look up information? I remember as a child asking why memorize something if it was in a book, and being told the book might not be handy. A phone is, and we see that memory is fading.
Do you use a notebook, and if so, what for? Do you need a phone to discuss your most recent TV or movie experiences?
I'm not finding any photos that relate to fading memory, unless you count a fading blossom.
Of the Day
Driftwood
Flower
Peony from mid-June.
Love me some notebooks and pens - and usually have a plethora lying around. I use a notebook for work (keep track of my chores), a notebook as day timer (yes, all ruled out by hand because I've never found a template that works for me - one side of the book is the week, the opposite is my run/walk journal). I use notebooks for each of my author clients, preferring to take notes while editing, then working my way through them to create editing letters. And I have various notebooks scattered around with stories and/or exercise 'thoughts'. I also have a journal at my bedside that I write in every night.
ReplyDeleteDid I mention I love notebooks and pens? LOL
As for the phone - no cell here (emergency use only), so if I need info on a TV show or movie, I have to use the computer...and by the time I get to one the next day (say we've watched something and I think one of the actors is familiar), I have usually forgotten.