bgfay

I just read an essay from Chris J. Wilson on his micro.blog (a platform which sounds interesting but not interesting enough). I wanted to have a conversation about the essay entitled I Still Love Paper. You can imagine why given all the thinking I do about good tools (paper is a damn good tool), fountain pens, writing, and so on. I wanted to write back that I find myself thinking in a near-parallel with him. We part ways on the calendar — his is in the cloud, mine is on the page — but agree that paper is a delight. I wonder what he might make of my thinking about good tools. I bet we could get somewhere mostly because we don't agree about everything.

What I want from conversation and connection boils down to this Aaron Sorkin quote from his great show Sports Night:

“If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.”

Chris J. Wilson has no way to contact him on his micro.blog. I understand why, but what a pity to not be able to make that connection and have that conversation.

Alan Jacobs in The Pleasures Of Reading In An Age Of Distraction adds this:

““I agree with every word you write” would be a gratifying thing to hear, I imagine — I wouldn’t know — but even more gratifying would be a reader who carries your idea a step further, who adds thoughts you never hat that enrich your understanding of your own project.”