chapter 15. MODESTY #3
The text of this post has been translated from Dutch to English with DeepL. It will be manually edited and streamlined soon.
THE IMAGE of the two trigrams: the Earth is above, a Mountain is below. A mountain below the Earth, a hidden mountain - a mountain that does not show its true stature. At least not a mountain that wants to tower over everything and be seen from a great distance. A Mountain under the Earth - the image of modesty.
The iPad is a paragon of minimalism and simplicity. Just one large button at the bottom of the screen and a few simple fingertip movements are enough to navigate the digital world. It seems to be made in the likeness of an archaic slate, which long ago children learned to write on. Nothing could really be broken on the humble slate, unless of course you smashed it to the ground with force. When it was full, everything could be deleted with a swipe of a sponge and you could start again with a clean slate.
The slate and slate pencil are no longer in use - there is no expectation of a comeback - even though they possessed some outstanding property. Their design was open source, so anyone could make them. Their raw materials - slate and some wood - were in excess supply and cheap. Repair was child's play, and when they did eventually wear out or break, they went - if discarded - back into nature. Four features that have nothing to do with the - at first glance so simple looking - iPad.
Soccer is simple. But playing simple soccer often turns out to be the hardest thing in the world.
Johan Cruyff
The other day in a lost half hour, I made a list of all the laptops, iPads, dumb-phones and smartphones I ever bought. Put together, they formed an impressive pile. Each e-purchase - starting with a Triumph-Adler and a Nokia 638 - made me as happy as a child. Until one by one they broke down - it leaves you helpless.
Imagine that until today, a pencil was an unknown phenomenon. And that a genius scientist had just invented it - along with rubber and sharpener. After all these years of tinkering and fumbling with writing on iPads and laptops, there has finally been the unsuspected revolution of the pencil.
Nice slim design - clean lacquer - writes basic black, but also in any color if desired - during a writer's block or during a test you can chew on the back - the tip can be sharpened again and again - the drawn line or the written word can be easily erased - and the included paper can be written on both sides (the latter is not possible with even the latest iPad). And the paper, once described, can be folded to fit into an envelope, as well as an airplane.
By the way, there is no need to recharge the pencil, as was the case with all that now obsolete electronic stuff. And should you leave a pencil in the cupboard for years, it remains compatible with any kind of paper, including competitor's. The entry-level model - for those who would like to try this novelty - a yellow variant of the brand Bruynzeel - costs only €11.84, For 12 pieces that is. A high-end model, for example an elegant Japanese Tombow Mono or a chic American Blackwing 602, does not cost more than €3. And then you have something.
If the marketing of this revolutionary gadget is to be believed, a single pencil can be used to write 45,000 words - even with the cheapest entry-level model.
Consider the pencil. The ubiquitous, yellow (primarily), 7-inch, 2-for-a-quarter led pencil - the simplest, most convenient, least expensive of all writing instruments. The most useful, least appreciated, most stolen article in the world. Servant of poet and banker alike, mightier than pen or the sword ... The pencil is, perhaps, humanity’s closest approach to perfection.
William Ecenbarger
In De Auto van Ivan (Ivan’s Car) it is calculated that an average bicycle is at least as fast as an average car. At least if the hours required to earn the vehicle together - assume an average income - plus all the hidden costs such as infrastructure, pollution and congestion are included. We should not be surprised that a similar calculation shows that the pencil leaves the iPad far behind in speed.
The modesty and humility of the pencil shows itself once again as it gives up its existence while writing. The hidden black core becomes usable only after peeling the surrounding wooden bark. Each time a smaller pencil, a pile of shavings and some graphite powder. It transfers its dark tone to the paper; as a pencil it disappears. What remains is - it is claimed - 56 kilometers of line, stroke and letter. They are the heirs of the pencil's essence, the heirs of its modesty. With a few rakish strokes of an ruber, they too fade and disappear in turn.
