Thank you, thank you, Patrick Rhone for letting me talk about pencils on The Cramped! Readers of Woodclinched don’t need convincing, but sometimes our other analog brethren might need some apologetics about why they should use wooden pencils.

One of the moony-eyed reasons why pencils are great:

Pencils offer a lesson in temporality. Life is fleeting, and so is your pencil. My grandmother’s 70 year-old Esterbrook, if I keep it in good condition, will probably go another 70 years. But even the best pencil, no matter how well I take care of it, will disappear with use. It’s fundamentally selfless — in order for me to create, it destructs. And if it has an eraser, it absolves me from my mistakes with literal pieces of itself.

(Don’t worry, I won’t take this metaphor to a Messianic level.)

There are some practical reasons, too. Go check it out and see for yourself.