IN my previous article, I wrote about friends, objects, practices, and trends that have become part of the past as well as predictions that failed to happen. In other words, they did not age well, as the buzz phrase goes.
Right beside me is an object that seems destined not to age well too.
I’m talking about my old writing buddy, the pencil. I have at least three of them in my pencil holder, all within easy reach, well sharpened, in case I need to use them.
But alas for many years now, I haven’t really touched any of them. I guess it’s at least 20 years since I last used a pencil to write an article, a story or a poem. I have found no need to use a pencil and a piece of paper the day I learned how to write on the computer and the smartphone. When I want to jot down something, I just use the Notes or MS Word application, which I can do even if the lights are out.
It wasn’t like that before. In my school days, the pencil was one of the most valuable possessions in my bag. I had a Mongol pencil. In the Philippines, there’s no one who hasn’t ever used a Mongol pencil in grade school. I still have two of them now, even if hardly used.
I once had a classmate who chewed on his pencil as a compulsive habit. It seemed like he was able to absorb the lessons better when he gnawed on a pencil. Funny thing is he had better grades than me. Maybe I should have chewed on my Mongol too?
The pencil helped bring out the inchoate desire to express myself through words when I began to put down sophomoric scribblings on unused notebooks. I also did a lot of drawings with a pencil.
But I also found out that the pencil has a dangerous side. One of my grade school mates stabbed the back of another schoolmate in a fight. Shocking for me, then. But just a few days ago, I watched a clip about a 7-year-old student in the US who is facing assault charges after police say he stabbed a classmate with a pencil. I also read something similar that happened in Japan, of all places. Is pencil stabbing now prevalent in schools around the world?
The modern pencil goes back many centuries to an ancient Roman writing instrument called a stylus. Made of metal, the stylus was used to scratch markings on papyrus, palm leaf and wax tablets. The stylus was replaced by thin brushes called “pincel,” an Old French term for the small paintbrush, which came from the Latin term, “penicillus” or little tail, a fine brush with camel hair. Now we know where the term “pencil” came from.
Eventually the brush was replaced by graphite, which turned out to be good for marking and writing and soon became the preferred writing tool for almost everyone. Through the medium of the pencil came documents, announcements, news articles, books, novels, poems, and musical compositions. Painters used the pencil to make initial sketches, which later became art masterpieces.
For many writers, the thrill is in the pencil. William Faulkner, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Henry David Thoreau, Vladimir Nabokov, and others have mentioned their choice of pencil as a writing tool. Author John Steinbeck is said to have used more than 300 pencils to write his hit novel, “East of Eden” in 1952. He said: “Sometimes just the pure luxury of long beautiful pencils charges me with energy and invention.” Award-winning poet Richard Wilbur talked about the ability to forget his surroundings and his fear as long as he could write words on paper with a pencil. Ernest Hemingway noted that he could judge his output by how many pencils he dulled. Wearing down seven pencils was a good day’s work for him.
Does writing words on paper with wooden pencil bring out the creative juices better than typing them or with a ballpen? Is it the feeling of the wooden pencil in their hands? Does the sound of the graphite scratching the paper trigger the thinking? Or is it the dark mark on paper made by each gliding stroke? Whatever the reason, thank God we still have the pencil to get their creative mojos flowing.
Even now it is still preferred not only by some writers but also by students, teachers, news reporters, by engineers, scientists, and golfers, mini retail store owners, and even the shadowy “jueteng kubrador” (collector of illegal lotteries). Our neighborhood carpenter always has a pencil lodged on his ear whenever he comes to do contracted work for us.
One great mathematician always carries a pencil with him. Here’s why: “Mathematics is the cheapest science. All one needs is a pencil and paper.”
One more thing, it is the writing tool of choice for solving crossword and Sudoku puzzles. Specially one with a good eraser. Just ask my wife who is a puzzle addict, just like millions around the world.
So, contrary to my premature prediction of the wooden pencil’s demise, it looks like the humble pencil is not about to go out of style anytime soon.
Even if most of the younger generations are using a computer keyboard to write and draw, we cannot count it out yet. The evidence: 14 billion pencils are still produced each year, believe it or not!
But there is a more meaningful use of the pencil for me, which I discovered lately.
On the Internet, someone pointed out seven qualities of a pencil that can serve as a guiding philosophy of one’s life. Let me just dwell on four qualities listed there.
The pencil always allows us to rub out any mistakes. If you make a mistake, there is an eraser on the top of the pencil, which can help you to correct it. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the right path.
Being sharpened now and then renews the pencil’s performance. So, in life, never be complacent. Don’t allow yourself to get so used to things being done the same way. Never slacken or you will get dull. Strive for new knowledge and added skills. At the workplace or in any endeavor, the sharp one has the edge. If broken, bring out the tip once more. Someone cleverly said: “Life without a purpose is like a broken pencil: it’s pointless.”
With a pencil, the most useful part is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So never neglect your inner self. Nurture your mind with healthy things that challenge you and inspire good thoughts. Read books, do meditation. Have a healthy inner dialogue and give yourself positive affirmations as a form of self-compassion and acceptance.
As the pencil gets shorter and shorter with use, so also with life. Make the most while it lasts. Be useful and productive till the last day of your life.
So my longtime writing buddy has now a renewed purpose. Even if I don’t use the pencil for writing, I will keep it to inspire me to live life like a pencil.