I just don't get it …

… Essay inspired by "The Typewriter Revolution" by Richard Polt - Chicago Tribune. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

That's what Polt's book helped me realize: I love typewriters not because I romanticize the past, but because I acknowledge that there might be better ways to do things than we are encouraged to do them now. Writing on typewriters is not efficient, but as Polt points out, perhaps that should not be the sole calculation. Rather, "(s)ome things we do aren't means to an end, but an end in themselves. Attending a concert, playing ball with friends, enjoying a glass of wine, reading fiction — we don't do these things for the results (…) These activities are neither efficient nor inefficient; they're self-sufficient."

Well, I was never a great typist. I helped keep the White Out people in business. And I can't say I ever bonded with a typewriter. Pens, maybe.