The printed word. Unlike the words you are reading right now - the words printed the old school way: in a book, a magazine, a newspaper, or on the back side of the shampoo bottle.
I'll never forget the time in my life when I began reading. I read anything I could. Road signs, billboards, the news ticker, compact disc covers, the ingredients lists on (highly processed) food cans, the certain general's warning on cigarette wrappers. I didn't understand most of what I was reading, but I loved to sit and study every single thing that was covered with text.
Now, we have smartphones, e-readers, the internet and email. The digital publishing age has emerged, and it has undoubtedly crushed the print media industry; however, there is still a pulse lying somewhere beneath that stack of iPads, Kindles, laptops and Blackberries.
Why won't print media just die!? Books are heavy and bulky. Who has time to read a newspaper anymore? I mean, come ON!
I'll tell you why - people can have a love affair with the printed word. From the moment you purchase that newspaper, you can't wait to find a quiet place where the two of you can be alone together over a cup of coffee.
Opening a book or a magazine is a completely sensory experience. You can feel the texture of the cover with your fingertips. You can smell the binding glue and ink on the page. You subconsciously study the sheen or dullness of the paper and the text that scrawls across it (a.k.a. - you undress the story with your eyes).
Please don't get me wrong. I enjoy reading e-zine's on my iPad from time to time, and I will occasionally open a marketing email in order to see what that one day sale is really all about. But it is quickly forgotten and never referred to again.
I have an entire closet of books. Each one feels like an old friend, that I simply could never throw out, no matter how long it takes me to revisit again. My bookshelf sometimes feels like the very definition of who I am or who I was at some point in my life. I am not an iPerson! I'm a Palahniuk Person, or a Dickens Person, or a person obsessed with architectural history....person.
The electronic word can be quickly disseminated to millions and millions of viewers, but it is also ephemeral.
The printed word.........is sensual and everlasting!
