I love pencils. Long, yellow, No. 2 wooden pencils. Needle-sharp pencils. Pencils with a new eraser on the end. I love the feel of them. I love the smell of them. I love the look of them.
But most of all, I love the promise of them.
I’m a writer and a designer.
I write about whatever comes to my mind. I’ve been known to complain about things. I write about the dumb things we all do and the stupid conventions that sometimes lock us into rigidity in our thinking. I write about feelings. I write about business and the many mistakes I made over the years. I write about memories — some good, some not so good. I write about things I regret and the things I wish I could do over. And I sometimes remember a few of the good things I did and write about them, too.
I also design things — things such as bookends, wooden bowls, “projects,” domino sets, simple machines, tools, inventions and products for my business, and sometimes I design useless gadgets just for the fun of it.
When I start one of my designs or one of my essays, I collect a handful of those wonderful yellow pencils. For me, having a handful of needle-sharp pencils promises that something will come out of it all. And it almost always does.
That’s why I love pencils — long, yellow ones with new erasers and freshly sharpened points
By the way, my mind works much better with sharp ones. Dull pencils don’t work well at all.
— Paul Burri is an entrepreneur, inventor, columnist, engineer and iconoclast. He is not in the advertising business, but he is a small-business counselor with the Santa Barbara chapter of Counselors to America’s Small Business-SCORE. The opinions and comments in this column are his alone and do not represent the opinions or policies of any outside organization. He can be reached at pburri@west.net. Click here for previous Paul Burri columns. Follow Paul Burri on Twitter: @BronxPaul