Put Pen to Paper!

One of our stated Dinosaur Values is to put pen to paper. And that means using a paper agenda. I'm glad to see that a recent article in the New York Times validates our position. 

See the full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/smarter-living/paper-planner-guide.html

I never abandoned my paper agenda and take great pleasure in visiting a certain New York City department store to purchase one (the same style--a week at a glance--in the same brown leather) to prepare for the next calendar year. It's a post-Thanksgiving, sometimes post-Christmas ritual. How ritualistic can you get when you commit your life to a bunch of apps, unless you consider updating an app or buying a new device a ritual (I don't). And ritual is essential to understanding the ebbs and flows of life. Even as humans evolved from the paleolithic past to a more recognizable modern society, engaging in ritual also offers comfort, especially those associated with death and grieving.

Another dinosaur value is that history matters. One paper agenda gives way to the next, and so on. As I've grown older, and perhaps with the help of PBS and Ken Burns, I realize that history is really a collection of stories, stories told by civilizations to offer context and form for individuals living in those societies. But those stories also offer valuable lessons for what *not* to do (knowing the outcome of decisions) and for how to productively live with others in the world. I fear that our current generation has lost its way and dismisses history as irrelevant, that the world didn't come into being until their birth. History is just as essential to the here and now of living as reading the daily newspaper. Oh, yeah. Reading. Real newspapers! Real books! More on those in another blog...

In the meantime, I urge all of you fellow dinosaurs to continue putting pen to paper. And proclaim your pride in being Positively Prehistoric!