twenty-two: an extremely abbreviated visual history of my relationship with thinking on paper
I used to think on paper. I used to bullet journal. I used to focus on the experience rather than on the results of writing - tasks, projects, presentations, diagrams... work product. I don't exactly remember why I stopped but it was almost certainly something akin to "but I'll never out this anywhere or do anything with it" and a flavor of "my life is too complicated to do everything on paper."
We become the complexity we seek to justify ourselves. It's a harsh symptom of capitalism engendered in 20somethings with something to prove1. Do all the things2. Be more efficient; be more effective. Get that core. Grind those bags.
I just don't think I need to do that anymore. It is certainly a matter of privilege that, after 22 years at my job, I am fully autonomous and self-driven and can try to do less but do it better.
I have been missing the simplicity something fierce as I am setting back into the simpler tools with specific, chosen friction.
It has been a time. My hands don't know what to do without a keyboard under them. I keep reaching for autocomplete that isn't there. The pen drags where the cursor used to fly, and some lizard part of my brain reads that drag as failure instead of friction — like I've forgotten the entire point was to slow down.
My boss today, though, asked where I was spending my time. The first time in a long while. Just a question. Probably. But something in my brain went straight to DEFCON 1, some old version of something-to-prove me waking up to account for itself. In this renewed desire for Simple, I won't write in a journal so I can prove my hours (my self) to anyone. I wish to write in it so I stop needing to. Apparently I haven't stopped needing to though. I'm still waiting for the other shoe. And I'm side-eyeing the sky, too, just in case it's got shoes too.
