Analog

One of my favorite NPR programs is This I Believe, a program where people from many walks of life share their beliefs or core values. One of my favorite essays on This I Believe was entitled The Imperfect Traces Left by Human Hands, by T. Susan Chang. Here is a short excerpt:

I am a child of the digital age, but I believe in analog.

I love the hiss and pop of vinyl, and the black splotch in the corner when a movie changes reels. I enjoy the hushed, uneven ticking of a windup watch. I love handwriting.

I believe in analog because it captures the imperfect traces left behind by human hands — smudges and echoes that can't disappear with the touch of a delete key.

My job involves responsibility for computers, networks, database reporting, and the software we use for medical practice management and electronic medical records. In spite of this--or maybe because of it--I find myself drawn to "analog" living outside of work. Yes, I use email; yes, I blog. But I do most of my personal writing, note-taking, and scheduling using pen or pencil and paper. I am strangely delighted by sending and receiving actual letters. I love physical books, the way my memory of the story is somehow tied to the spaghetti sauce stain on the upper right hand corner of page 112. I gravitate towards acoustic instruments; it's not that I haul them to mountain tops for impromptu unplugged cloud concerts, but I could.

Ms. Chang has captured it perfectly--analog is an antidote to perfectionism, a manifesto of humanity, a record of the touch of actual hands. It's also the possibility, the inherent unpredictable nature of real life in all its messy, complex, surprising glory. Analog contains the truth that reality isn't always divisible into discrete categories or bits of information; everything is intertwined and interdependent, a continuous whole. Most of all, it's a reminder that we are all connected; and, if no one can claim to be completely in control of their lives, neither must anyone feel completely alone.