I’ve always heard this transition would happen. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.
Are my mid-30s the point in life when the past starts looking better than the future? Technological advancements used to excite me: smartphones, social media, and AI. But now, I’m beginning to wonder if what we’re losing in all this “progress” is actually worth it.
So, for my most recent midlife crisis, I bought a typewriter. Actually, I bought two typewriters, but that’s another story for another time.
Why would I buy a typewriter in an age when I can get AI to generate a cringy dancing picture of my family?
At the risk of sounding cliché, at least three reasons come to mind.
1. Distraction-free writing.
We check our phones every five minutes.
You know what that means? Distractions. I know – I’ve got them too. If everyone has a distraction every five minutes, then everything we’re working on takes longer, and the quality is not what it could be.
The typewriter appeals to me because it’s a cure for distractions.
There are no email inboxes to clean up, no text message pings, and certainly no doom-scrolling on a typewriter. All it does is type.
I like the sound of that.
2. I want to learn a skill.
In an age when everything is too complicated, expensive, or not worth working on, I want to add the skill of fixing something with my hands.
There used to be a person who would fix what was broken if you couldn’t fix it. You had someone you took your lawnmower to, your grandfather clock to, and your appliances to. My grandfather was one of those people.
Every time I would go to his house, his garage was full of lawnmowers. Other people’s lawnmowers. He was the one who fixed it.
Now, nobody works on stuff like that anymore. So we just buy a new one and move on.
Buying and using a typewriter will force me to learn how it works and maintain it. Nobody near me can work on it, so it’s up to me to learn how to service it. Thankfully, it’s in good shape and not too difficult to figure out.
Maybe my smartphone-cursed hands can handle it.
3. Maintaining the past.
The typewriter is a physical link to those who came before us. Have you ever considered how many people have lived where you currently live?
Do you ever wonder who they were? What were they like? Did they struggle with distractions as we do?
We will always be a forward-facing people. No matter how bad we may want to, no one can live in the past. We become a sad sight if we ever try. But neither can we live in the future. We are pointed toward the future, but we can only live in the present.
However, we should appreciate the past because without the people, tools, or advancements that came before us, we wouldn’t be standing here today.
Buying and using a typewriter isn’t a desire to go back to the past as much as it is honoring and learning from it. I’m afraid we don’t do that enough.
I know I could do better.
So I’m waiting.
I’m currently waiting on ink ribbons to arrive so I can start using my typewriter. Maybe this is how I finally develop patience?
I hope the ink isn’t arriving via the U.S. Postal Service. I might have to pass the typewriter down to my son before it arrives.
And he’s too young to have a midlife crisis.