On Charles Darwin:

Charles Darwin began his pocket notebook habit while sailing as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle. While exploring the South American coast, he gathered specimens and filled 15 field notebooks with observations on subjects like zoology, botany, archeology, and linguistics, data like latitude and longitude, barometer readings, temperature, and depth soundings, sketches of maps and specimens, and personal information like diary entries, shopping lists, and financial information.

The Art of Manliness reminds me of those great Wiserhood commercials. Granted, they both come off a bit sexist, but they inform us of stereotypes and historical points of view.

In that same breath, and in the context of the crazy WhatsApp purchase today, The Typist tweeted the inevitable truth of our digital age:

I think after the next few years are spent on constant connectivity, we're going to spend decades on retrieving DISconnectivity.February 20, 2014

Spot on.

There will be a million and one ways to disconnect from the technological revolution we find ourselves in. It won’t be a witch hunt of connectivity, but rather a culling of those aspects of our lives that don’t need to be digital.

And I think pen and paper will be one of those mediums that spirals back as a foundational element of creativity.

I’ve come to despise my digital notes. I can never find what I’m looking for. That may be a testament to my discontentedness with note-taking apps, or it could be a burden of the constantly changing digital age. Barring search functions, creating an archive of notes, thoughts and ideas on physical paper will be, for me, a breakthrough in long-term creativity. Pen and paper are as tried and true as the wheel — thousands of years of innovation has turned paper into one of the greatest tools mankind possesses.

I plan to fully embrace the rekindling of paper. That kindling started with a few of these 20 men who archived all of their thoughts for mankind — for the future. The future we live in today.[1]

I use the term “few” because I fail to understand how George Lucas is considered a great enough man to stand alongside the likes of Newton, Da Vinci and Jefferson. Star Wars was awesome, but I don’t think it was that awesome. ↩