What do i do with these pens?

Love/hate digital mediums

Pens in my possession go dry long before the ink is used. By the time I want to use them they are basically fossilized.

I’ve been typing everything for so long, I can barely write anymore. I have all these pens, and want to use them, but I have nothing to use them for really.

The digital medium is great for sharing, for communication. But it’s kind of taken over my reality. What started as convenience has ended in control.

Case in point - I want to start collecting music, and stop paying $50 per month for Apple to host everything for me and my family online. Apple kills it, knocks it right out of the park with their cloud services. I have such a great way to keep photos, store files and find music. Except that I don’t need all of these photos, files, and music. But I have to have all of it to have some of it now. organising it and extracting myself from the system would take months and it’s far easier to keep paying. After all, we are all using it.

Why do I want to do this anyway? So the things I do mean more. So the money I spend goes to the right places (musicians, for example, rather than Apple - don’t feel bad for them though, they’ll get enough out of me without the cloud subscription). I want to consume less, but consume with more attention. When I play music I want to listen to it. In a way I do want to go back to the 90s, albeit a version of the 90s where I am not a teenager and can do the things I wanted to back then. When I listen to music I want to listen. I want to curate and to care. And yeah, within reason, I want to pay for it - because oh my god these people pouring the best of themselves into their art are amazing. I want the world to be more like this, and less like a giant company. I want autonomy for individuals, I want creative economies and stronger connections between artists and ”fans.” I guess that means communities, although as introverted as I am the word really turns me off.

I forgot why thinking about my pens triggered these thoughts. I guess it’s because a pen symbolizes the here and now, the act rather than the result. It’s embracing process. It’s less frantic, more contained, less sharable and public, more personal. But there is also so much resistance to me using them, I’ve all but cut off the desire for all that, and I guess I want it back.