“He who puts pen to paper writes of himself, whether knowingly or not.” —E. B. White
That is true. It’s also largely anachronistic. Gone are days when the majority of people sit down with a pen for the purposes of composition. So I wonder: Do people sitting at computers reveal and express themselves the same way as a writer who uses pen and ink?
I doubt it, and that’s not just nascent Ludditery talking. I don’t despise computers; in fact I own one. I use it nearly every day. I go to computer laboratories at school when I have a few minutes to kill between classes. In those rooms filled with computers, I see all the people sitting in front of them. They stare at the screens, looking away far too rarely to make me comfortable. They have similar, glazed expressions on their faces; they’re blank, though not thoughtless; their mouths are agape and their eyes are seemingly unfocused. It’s got me thinking.
Of course, they don’t all look exactly the same. Some wear headphones; some talk to those around them; some stand in front of the printer; some flip through books or papers that lay strewn about them. But their faces, when they stare at the screen…their faces worry me. You see, I think you can tell a lot about a person just by observation. The way their eyes move, their posture, their clothes and expressions—these things have meaning.
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It makes me think of Peter Bibler, my roommate in the days of old. He and I shared that anachronistic habit (yes, out of place even in the mid-nineties) of writing out first drafts of our essays long hand. Sometimes we’d sit together at a table in the Great Room to do this. Peter’s manner during these sessions revealed a lot about his personality. He’d stretch and lean over his papers, rubbing his face and hair into all manner of shapes. By the end of the night his hair would be mountainous, his eyes deranged. His intensity was glorious, inspiring. I’ve never seen anyone look like that at a computer. That was some stupendous hair.
To be fair, computer labs are public places where the majority of people are less likely to behave so eccentrically. Peter is an extraordinary person, unlike most of the rest of us. I shared a room with him and so was privy to such behavior. Now, living alone, with Peter hours away, I can’t truthfully describe the compositional habits of any other human being. But I don’t think any of this detracts from my point.
You may be wondering exactly what my point is. Computers impose a rigidity upon us that could, if we’re not careful, dampen our creative spirits. Our creative spirits are our humanity, our souls, our essences. This world provides enough opportunities to let those spirits vanish like the ephemera that they are. We don’t need computers to provide another.
They do this through an imposed regimen of verbal expression, which in itself is nothing new. Words themselves are regimented; they must be standardized in order for anyone not inside the communicator’s head to understand them. Languages coalesced into national institutions long before nations existed in the technical sense. Dictionaries have been around for hundreds of years. They tell us what words mean and how they are spelled. In his autobiography, Mark Twain tells us that he was the best speller in his school, but also that he abhorred the effects of institutionalized spelling systems. He writes that orthography can reveal a lot about a person. Choice of letters (conscious or not) are a key to character. If we all spell things the same way, what does that tell you about us? If I had my way, I’d eradicate the ‘c’ but retain the ‘j’.
But we all still use the same alphabet. With computers, spelling is programmed. If the computer doesn’t recognize the way you spell a word, it will make you aware of its disapproval. It is possible to turn this function off, but the vast majority of people will never do this. And it extends further than spelling, further even that grammar. Computers are eclipsing handwriting. One may change script or type size, but even then you’re stuck with precisely repeated letters. There’s no way to add an extra spiral to descenders or dot your ‘i’ with a smiley face. I weep for all the handwriting analysts whose careers have been doomed by progress.
In the word processing programs so common to composition nowadays, each letter is exactly like the other letters of its kind; they do not vary. Variation is the spice of life. It helps keep things fresh and new. Computers eliminate this, providing no means to readily mix scripts or styles. They hinder expression.
I admit that I don’t know much about the new technologies invading the market place and our homes. What I do see is the slow disappearance of pens. Right now, it’s rare to see someone taking class notes on a laptop, but I saw it at least eight years ago. With all these palm pilots and whatever new hand-held technology is on the horizon, the role of pen and paper changes. While saving trees is a good thing, the possible stifling of expression continues to worry me. Writing with pen and paper, I can move the leaf to different angles, draw pictures in the margins, and write sideways, backward, upside down. I can ignore lines. Can a word processing program do this? Sure, I can chose from “fonts,” (don’t get me started on what all this does to our vocabulary) but there’s such a hassle if I want to combine a letter in the Gothic script with one in the Irish half-uncial and chancery cursive. What keys must I press to create that combination?
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As I shift gears, I am obliged to point out flaws to this argument—not the least of which is my own hypocrisy. I write primarily on a typewriter (although this was composed originally with a pen). Typewriters put words into nice, neat little lines, with the letters all exactly the same width, the margins even, and the ink uniform. I also study calligraphy, without which I would probably never think these thoughts. In calligraphy, you learn quickly that uniform letter sizes and shapes are encouraged; people seem to share a similar aesthetic tending toward repetition. In this way, computers may be seen as another step in the world of art, a step that greatly simplifies and brings closer the goals of the calligrapher. For this reason, this essay is not a lamentation. While I do mourn the loss of elegant handwriting, I understand the impulse toward the word processor. After all, we all use an alphabet—and a language—that relies on continuity for intelligibility.
That continuity may best be described as a system, one which enables the users to operate on many levels. There are an infinite number of ways to utter a sentence; variations of tone, volume, emphasis, facial expression, gesture, etc. Writing limits these possibilities, and word processing limits them even more. People try to overcome these limitations by the use of italics, bold letters, capitals, emoticons, and abbreviations like LOL. These have also become institutionalized.
Within these institutions, each person must develop an individual style. I choose to write (mostly) on a manual typewriter. It suits my purpose, but I can also write in calligraphy, in cursive, or in a word processing program. These are things I want to do. As Harlan Ellison says, we operate at the level of technology where we’re most comfortable.
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A month ago The Onion ran an article about the ways people are expressing themselves in the world of on-line commerce (and if you can find it in that site’s archives you’re a better web surfer than me). In their usual style, the article described the way people are writing product reviews, making lists for other customers, and generally inserting their own lives into the internet. It described how these people are putting quite personal information into these seemingly depersonalized areas of the on-line marketplace.
The article, like everything in “America’s Finest News Source” is satirical and partly fictionalized, but it does make an interesting point about the evolution of communication in a world where face-to-face interaction is becoming less and less necessary. We can easily see in some popular web sites this type of thing happening. On Ain’t It Cool News, the main film reviewer is prone to including long diatribes about his youth when discussing the most recent film releases.
Believe it or not, this gives me hope. Though I mourn the loss of cursive as an essential component of grammar school education, I do not despair for the human spirit. When certain avenues of expression fade, others open up. Dictionaries may eradicate idiosyncratic spelling; assembly lines may overwhelm hand-made craft; computers may eliminate the need/desire for beautiful handwriting, but people will always find ways to insert themselves into the world.
But I still remember their faces, and they still worry me. Despite the freedom of information flow—the ability to type something like this essay, put it on the internet and make it available to anybody who can find it—I worry about people interacting with their environments. I worry about what their faces tell me. Things change, regardless of how I feel about them. Without the computer, I would never have been able to buy my typewriter on E-Bay. I can more easily keep in touch with friends, like Peter, who now live hours away.
In the end, I can only describe my ambivalence to the advancement of technology—so-called progress. It does lock us into a system, but we’ve always been in a system of one kind or another. I used to think that I would have to decide what’s more important: the ease of access and dissemination of information, or creative freedom. That’s not the choice I have to make.
So I’m left to wonder: By what method does Peter Bibler compose these days? To what heights does his hair rise? To the heavens, I hope.
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If there’s a word that means “scintillatingly compunctuous, with a dash of swashbucklingness” that word is Dan Peretti. Is that two words? Very well, he is vast. He once hung the longest seamless gutter in the world, so he’s got something to fall back on if everything else fails. His greatest regret is that there are many old Nintendo games that he never bothered to finish.
