Why bother?
No seriously.
I decided I need a new obnoxious interest that makes women say “you’re so fascinating” and “I’ve never met anyone like you before” (real quotes from a real woman, when I told her I mainly use the internet to read blogs and don’t have social media. Fellow nerds, if your dating life is suffering, flaunt your nerdness!) so I decided to get into epic poetry.
I was thinking of making an epic poem anthology: A big, handbound, handwritten book that would mostly just sit on the shelf because the process of making it would be vastly more interesting than reading it. But there’s kind of an elephant in the room here.
Why write out poems by hand when I could just use a printer?
No, seriously, is there anyone out there who still writes things by hand? Why? Copying and pasting the text would be so much faster and neater and generally superior in every way.
Similarly, why does anyone draw on paper when you can use a drawing program on your computer? Why do people read paper books when you can read on your computer? It boggles the mind. The computer has an absolute advantage over every other method of doing anything, how has it not completely taken over?
On the other hand… why do I listen to my radio instead of streaming the station over my computer?
Maybe the friction is the point. Maybe radios beat streaming BECAUSE they’re less convenient, so it makes listening feel special. Maybe writing/drawing on paper is fun BECAUSE it’s more limited, so it forces you to think. Maybe paper books are still around BECAUSE they take up a bunch of space, not in spite of that.
Or maybe the radio wins because it has better speakers, and drawing with a pencil is easier than with a mouse, and paper books don’t run out of batteries or need an internet connection.
I really don’t know. It’s easy to think of romantic explanations for stuff like this. It’s certainly appealing. But when it comes to pragmatism vs romanticism, who wins?