Living a Slower Life
On making space for silence
I bought a typewriter recently from a salvage shop in town called Zaborski’s Emporium. It’s a wonderful machine. There’s a beautiful nostalgia inherent to it. Interacting with something so mechanical and old such as this feels fun, but that’s not the only reason I bought it.
I bought a typewriter because long hours in front of a computer screen for work and fiction writing were causing me to have debilitating migraines. Like, in bed with the lights off can’t do anything migraines. It was quite literally my brain telling me: too much screen. The typewriter is a screen-free way for me to still work on drafts. I’m grateful to have this distinction: the computer is a tool for work and the typewriter is a tool for fun.
This distinction is one that might be helpful for all of us in considering our relationships with the technology we use. If anything, I hope you’ll think deeply about how much of your day is spent under the yoke of device with an internet function.
Yes, you might have noticed I will still have to type my stories into a computer. And yes, by inserting the type writer as an extra step, my writing process is, absolutely, “antithetical to productivity.” But, for me, this is kind of the point. In an age when everyone and every business is obsessed with efficiency I’m protesting the entire concept. (Please continue to boycott Amazon, Apple, Meta, Tesla, Google, Walmart, and Target)
Tom Hanks has a collection of over 200 typewriters. He is an enthusiast. So is John Mayer. I love this documentary about the typewriter featuring both artists. In the movie, about 20 minutes in, Mayer delivers this applicable line: “I feel like the next step in technology is less about what you’re using and more about how you’re using it.” How are you spending your time?
Typewriter usage begets slower thoughts, patient thoughts, considered thoughts. There is no spellcheck distraction. No internet browser looming in the bottom corner of the screen. Between clicks and clacks there’s silence. Majestic and beautiful silence.
For me, living a slower life means leaving room for abundant silence. It means exhaling and feeling the space between moments. Between a thought and picking up your phone. Between the clicks and clacks on the typewriter.
Here are some things that Lauren and I are into in this year of our lord 2025
Borrowing books from the library
The year 1883
Using a typewriter to write stories
Reading poetry to spam callers
Our Grandfather Clock announcing the time, interrupting conversations and our thoughts and the shared silence to say “here I am with the time.”
Borrowing DVDs from the library instead of paying streaming services
Listening to music on a record instead of Spotify
Reading magazines (Harpers, The New Yorker, Baffler, New England Review, McSweeney’s)
Reading by candlelight
Reading magazines by candlelight
Turning off my phone
Using our digital camera to snap photos instead of our phones
Looking things up in our 28 volume encyclopedia
Our garden plot at the library. We are so excited to finally grow our own food.
Baseball starts soon. Nice slow game, baseball.
reading poetry to spam callers sounds splendid. cannot wait to try!