When you start writing books, no one tells you about the fun you’ll have ensuring every quotation mark and apostrophe is curly.
Every. Single. One.
I love it and hate it.
It’s friction.
It slows me down.
It ensures there will still be mistakes when I finally print the book and sell it.
All of these are both good and bad things.
A frictionless world has its benefits, but it also has a great many downsides.
I’m grateful I don’t have to hunt or grow my own food as my distant ancestors did.
I’m also a little sad I may never learn the patience their lives must have required.
I’ll likely never learn to sit in silence the way I imagine they did. To be alone and blended seamlessly with nature.
Sure, I can go out there. Maybe I will one day. But most likely, I won’t.
Even if I do, it won’t be every day.
It won’t become the rhythm of my life the way meetings are today. Or this phone. Or this keyboard.
Yeah, curly quotes are a beautiful kind of friction.
I’m going to try to remember that as I make my way through 50,000 words on my modern-day hunt.
Leave a Reply