Reading with a pencil
I found out about this idea on Austin Kleon's blog while researching about Vladimir Nabokov's butterflies. Kleon quoted Lewis Hyde on why he still walks with a butterfly net:
I carry it in part to catch and release the few things I can't identify on the wing but mostly because of the way it changes the way I walk. I don't know if the same is true for birders with their binoculars or deer hunters with their rifles, but for me, walking with the butterfly net alters my perceptions. It produces a state of mind, a kind of undifferentiated awareness otherwise difficult to attain.
Perhaps it has to do with the way the net declares my intention, which is to apprehend what is in front of me. Walking with the net is like reading with a pencil in hand. The pencil means you want to catch the sense of what you are reading. You intend to underline, put check marks and exclamation points in the margin and make the book your own….
This idea that simply holding a pen in my hand while reading could alter my perception is very intriguing to me. I often use my phone to take notes while reading, but instead of increasing my attentiveness, it often feels as though it is pulling me away from the book.
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This led me into thinking about the pencil, or the butterfly net, as noticing tools.
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I’ve tried reading with a pencil, and it did increase the number of ideas I underlined. I also need a way to trace the connections between those ideas and the ones I already had, so I’m using the margins for this. Then I do separate sessions to digitize everything. But the excitement of noticing the connection fades, and it becomes harder to put into words in the notes. I’m not sure yet whether this is better. I think I need a single-purpose device. When I upgrade my phone, I’ll try using the old one solely as a note-taking device.
