I read this in a Wall Street Journal article a few weeks ago:
President Barack Obama sent trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama to Congress on Monday, capping months of tense negotiations and setting the stage for a heated if brief fight between free-trade advocates and labor unions before the deals’ likely approval. The 4 p.m. arrival Monday on Capitol Hill of three over-sized envelopes addressed in calligraphy and bearing the president’s wax seal—plus 16 boxes of documents—offers Congress an opportunity to pass the three pacts, plus a related worker-assistance program, by mid-October.
This brief, well-written paragraph describes a unique and important use of real paper and real ink. The White House sent three large envelopes with papers and sixteen boxes of documents to Congress. As a fan of actual paper serving us by bearing actual, printed words, I was glad to read it. I’m not saying I don’t like paper and ink’s virtual versions. Goodness knows, I spill plenty of cyber ink on reams of cyber paper writing this blog. I’m just noting that sometimes words, whether we use them for governance or art, need to be borne on something tangible. Words should have weight in their meaning and sometimes in what carries them. I find it apt that words from the President, which should almost always be weighty and significant, are even sealed with wax and addressed using calligraphy.
This reminds me, it confirms, really, why I keep an actual journal, a notebook of everything from ideas to essays, tweets to shopping lists. Real ink and real paper take up space, they have a physical presence, and I think driving a pen across a page takes a little more time than tapping a keyboard. Sometimes real paper and ink even preserve (at least in my journal; certainly not in legislation sent from the White House to Congress) errors, first drafts and abandoned ideas. People still use these to record real-life stuff which includes literary strikes and home runs, both. I think that’s why I like them. It’s why I write significant verbiage on actual pages as well as these cyber ones, too.
