Medium is not the message, it is the challenge, says my Dad

Between 1967 and 1970 my father wrote articles for the local (at 17 years old) and national newspapers (at 18-20) as well as youth magazines. For example, he did the movie pages for HEY a youth magazine since defunct although the name remains popular.

So, he had to get a typewriter because the papers would not accept hand written articles. Up until then he had used pencils and pens out of necessity but there were advantages. Writing his first drafts in pencil, he could make corrections fairly easily and then write a fair copy in pen. The process was laborious but forgiving. It took actual physical effort and mental concentration to write legibly and correctly but when mistakes happened or he changed his mind he could revise without much hassle.

But the typewriter changed all that. Because the papers would not take hand written articles, he purchased a Grey Astor typewriter from Austria. He still has it. It is a slender and comparatively lightweight portable typewriter very similar to an Olivetti Lettera 22. He got it on an eight month installment and started typing up articles immediately to help pay for it.

Between writing movie reviews and other pieces, he participated in student riots and made protest posters, For every article he used carbon copy sheets between his pages because he wanted a copy for himself.

Which is where he learned how unforgiving a typewriter can be. He soon discovered that he hated blemished copies and because he could not make changes the way he used to with pencil and pen he began to compose even more in his head. He simply didn't want to make (what he saw as) a mistake.

He switched to computers as soon as he could and at first he continued to compose in his head and not on the screen. But the computer was so generous with mistakes!

He recently told me that 'once you start writing on a computer, even if you try to continue to compose in your head you end up with verbal diarrhea.'

In other words, even if you try to maintain the discipline of mental composition on a computer, invariably you end up in a fluid environment of cuts and pastes. Far better then to start with pencil and pen or with a typewriter if you are brave enough. Because these tools still demand physical effort and mental concentration that a computer will never require.

I confess some of my recent text messages were dictated to my phone. Speech to text has come a long way. Soon (if not now) speech to text will be faster than a court reporters' shorthand.

To maintain the architectures of mind that are the mental analogues to the mechanical skills of writing and typing, I must continue to exercise certain behaviours. I must continue to draft with pencil, pen, & typewriter.

Cursive is no longer taught in some schools, with the loss of yet another mechanical skill, I fear a mental ability is also being lost and there is nothing on the horizon I see as an adequate replacement.

All of which is to say that my father's riff on Marshall McLuhan's favorite adage is an apt one: Every medium presents its own challenges and each of those challenges is an opportunity in disguise. There are rewards you have not yet tasted lying in wait for you at the end of the pen or around the next carriage return.

Go on. Find out. Turn off.