Pen - A Communication Technology

A while ago I was wondering how communication has evolved for the better. I started reflecting on a chat I had earlier that day with a 55 year old lady while talking about the longing people feel when they are away from their families and homes. She was asking me if I miss my family back home in India. I told her I do and then she said, “but you can at least FaceTime them and still feel close to them”. I nodded and shared that it is indeed true and I am grateful that I can reach out to them whenever I want. She shared that during her college days they had answering machines so that was better than writing letters, something that she heard her parents do.

This suddenly reminded me of a movie I had recently watched, The Color Purple. In the movie, when the protagonist’s (Celie) sister (Nettie) was being thrown out of their house by her husband, she kept shouting, “Write” to Nettie. Later, as years progress, Nettie keeps writing to Celie about her life. Even though Celie never got to read those letters because her husband hid them from her for the longest time, the pen and paper were tools for Nettie to stay in touch with her sister, Celie.

Even though it might not look like there was any ostensible technological advancement at the time, we could look at the pen as a technological tool where it is helping two individuals stay connected. This realization led me to the rabbit hole of wondering whether pens could be considered technology. I think they do because:

(a) they were invented by human

(2) they are a means of communication (writing / reading / editing / marking)

(3) they help people interact in novel ways (drawing, poems, stories, letters, postcards, greeting cards, etc) and above all, their discovery changed the way people interacted.

If I am not wrong, writing came after carving. Perhaps our ancestors started to carve on stones, which led to the formation of a language, followed by the discovery of tools to communicate in language (speaking, writing, reading). All of which, after the discovery of pen, became literary i.e. to be written down with a tool (the pen!) on something (cloth, paper, leaf, etc). Hence, pen is indeed a technology, one that permanently changed the way people could communicate on this planet. It paved the opportunity for human society to connect beyond feelings and expressions.

Perhaps, a pen might be something that could have led to the subsequent discovery of paper, or shall I consider it a chicken and egg problem? Whatever is the truth, it is undeniable that together both of them have now become a powerful pair of communication. Imagine what our world would be without pen and paper? I can not even fathom the potential of a pair of pen and paper — the infinite possibilities it provides to humanity to interact, design, discover, connect, and archive trillions of billions of data, information, knowledge, and art. Pen is power, one that has truly revolutionized the word of communication in unthinkably innovative and comprehensible ways. The combination of a pen with paper is like blood and organs in a living body.