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Something I have to confess to every technofile, social bumblebee and early adopter. It’s something I won’t ever regret even though I’m an environmentalist at heart and in many ways my obsession contributes to pollution. My obsession exists because I’m an animal called human and entirely wound up in cultural heritage and tactile experience of the world around me. I confess that I love paper. I’m obsessed with paper. It’s more than something to scribble on – it’s a superior technology.

In a lecture several years ago on Artificial Intelligence, Professor Ray Williams described the measure for success when we talk about a replacement for paper. We can safely say we’ve made a paper substitute (electronic or not) when we can show it feels and acts like paper, when we can roll it up and put it under our arm and take it into the toilet. When we can scribble on it with anything that makes a mark, tear off a corner and put it in our pocket, or swat a fly or a spider (not that any of us would bring on the bad karma of killing living creatures). Without a doubt in my mind until we at least meet that criteria we’re not going to be able to hold up our gizmo and say – replacement for paper.

And the price of picking up a pen and writing on a piece of paper? We can’t underestimate that factor in paper’s ubiquity and widespread adoption.

Another advantage of paper. Alright it decays, but how often do you expect the format or file structure of paper to change or the technology of your visual system to be too advanced to read content just a decade old? Paper is ubiquitous. We can screw it up and unfold it, pin it to the wall, produce fine art or gross vandalism (with a fine line between). Paper is a technology far superior to anything that has tried to challenge it. Paper makes love to our fingers. Paper seduces our minds with a history of ideas.

Paper provides a direct line of cultural attachment and memory to Golden Books (reading Heidi) as a child and on my desk is a decaying copy passed down from my grandmother about settlement in North Eastern Tasmania where everyone she knows or is related to has been annotated in pencil. The book was published in 1928, she carried it for most of her life as a treasured possession. As her eyes and the paper that carries the words worked for her in 1928, it still works for me in 2009. I don’t need to buy a new computer, operating system or download a plugin or open source program.

As a booklover I would dare not dog-ear a page, but the technology provides that ability. When I buy a book it’s an emotive lustful experience about meeting a passion. When I own a book it becomes a child which I part with only if life rips it away (or I lend it to family). I put my books onto bookshelves and admire their spines, often stopping to read them and pull the memory of their contents back into my imagination. I open them nostalgically, admire their cover design and layout. They make love to my fingers through the paper itself and the words they contain.

Why hasn’t the paperless office come to be a reality? The answer is both technological and social. First and foremost paper is a superior technology; ubiquitous, cheap and adaptable. Paper is everything from stickynotes to origami and back to toilet paper. But even stronger is the socio-cultural bond we have with paper. When I pick up a pen and write it’s something I share with my heritage, a link through the past to Shakespeare and to famous treaties. It’s something we share with every other four year old learning the alphabet, or reading the Blue Book in Grade 6.

I once wrote a brilliant poem about a man who loved books so much he filled his whole house with them, room by room. He filled every space until he finally crushed himself and died – Andrew Kelly, if you’re out there it would be interesting to re-read (last heard of in Japan, 1990’s).

Paper is an obsession born out by the existence of libraries, book groups and literary clubs. I’m personally, historically and emphatically in love with paper. And I have no regrets. For me to adopt a better technology it has to be a better technology not a Kindle or a laptop or some uninvented rolled up piece of shiny plastic. Paper holds an extremely high bar for it’s challengers, don’t be fooled by it’s longevity.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 9:12 am and is filed under books, environment, rants, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.