What are we looking for?
What are we looking for? I am infinitely curious about what collecting reveals about the humans we are, what makes us feel deeply the way nothing else can. For this post, I discuss some broad categories of experience that lead us to collect writing instruments.
10 things I’m grateful for, the fountain pen edition
This is a simple gratitude post, featuring ten fountain pen things I’m grateful for.
Whimsy is healing
Academia is not the only field where one is expected to perform seriousness. Whimsy gets a bad rap in quite a few industries. But my stationery habit does not make me bad at my job, and I am prepared to stick a sticker on that hill.
The Soft Long Story
I care about story and intricacy, and the pleasure of using an older technology. Writing itself is a very old technology, but it, too, is new in the grand scheme of things.
Stationery Storytelling
What especially frustrated me about #montblancgate is that the ink did not have the same story. … What IS the ink about? Can the same ink mean something else three different times? I don’t think so.
On minimalism
I don’t see minimalism as a virtue. Maximalism is also not a virtue. I think our stationery choices are value neutral in the grand scheme of things. But our stationery habit can tell stories about us - about our identity, history, aspirations, character traits, joys and worries, and even neurotype.
