I just bought a computer.
There it sits on my desk, this beige box humming away like a small fridge. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve done. Part of me is excited. The other part misses my typewriter already.
The Typewriter Years
I love writing. Always have. My old typewriter and I, we had a relationship. You know the one, the clack-clack-ding of hitting the carriage return, the smell of the ribbon, the satisfying thunk of each key strike. Real, physical, tangible.
But there were problems. You run out of paper. The ribbon goes dry halfway through a thought (always at the worst moment). And Tipp-Ex. Bloody Tipp-Ex everywhere. One typing error and you’re either living with it or painting over it with that awful white stuff that never quite dries properly.
Enter the Beige Box
Now I can type all day. No paper running out. No ink to replace. No more Tipp-Ex fingers.
The screen glows green (well, mine does). Letters appear like magic. Make a mistake? Just backspace. Gone. No mess, no fuss, no evidence of your incompetence.
It feels wrong somehow. Too clean. Too easy.
What Have I Done?
I’m sat here wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake. This machine cost actual money. Real money I could’ve spent on something sensible. Or beer.
Part of me thinks this is brilliant. I can write without stopping, without running to buy more paper, without my hands covered in correction fluid. I can edit without retyping entire pages.
But another part of me, the stubborn bit, thinks I’ve sold out. Gone soft. Swapped something real and honest for this plastic convenience.
The Truth I’m Avoiding
Let’s be honest though, I’m not going back. I know it already, even if I’m pretending I might.
Because once you’ve tasted the freedom of endless typing, of easy corrections, of not having to plan every sentence before you commit it to paper (because paper was precious and mistakes were permanent), you can’t unknow it.
The typewriter will gather dust. I’ll feel guilty about it for a while. Then I won’t think about it at all.
Welcome to 1984
So here I am, a reluctant convert to the computer age. Still not entirely convinced this is progress, but using it anyway because deep down I know it is.
My typewriter sits in the corner. I catch myself looking at it sometimes. Remembering the good times.
But I’m typing this on the computer.
About this blog post: This is one of many thoughts that started life as scraps of paper, margins of notebooks, half-formed thoughts written over the past 40-odd years. They come from a time before algorithms, before social media, before anyone cared about “polish”. They’re real, imperfect, and honest. I’ll take that over shiny nonsense any day.