"One-of-a-kind" returns to my life

It’s not even 9 a.m., but I already notice a theme emerging today.

I woke up early and was reading The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier. The printing of each page varied so much that I had a deep, almost profound, recollection of what it once meant to print ink on paper (a technology we no longer think of as technology). It used to be a slow, laborious and deeply intentional act.

Then it became mechanized. Every copy the same. None original.

I looked up from my book. Opposite my bed is a large encaustic painting of the mountains and trees around us. It was painted by a local artist. She lives at an altitude of about 9,000 feet, in a cabin deep in the woods. She carried my painting in her arms, lying on her back in a sled, while her husband used a snowmobile to pull them all out of the woods, back to civilization and eventually to our local art gallery.

One-of-a-kind.

I then started wondering about the last time I bought a birthday card. (No clue.) It’s been a very long time. Anyone I care enough to give a birthday card, I care enough to make one.

This is a picture I took yesterday morning. It’s not a great photo, but it gave me joy to watch the horses relax, and it gives me joy to share it.

We can make things in large quantities. We can make thousands of copies, all exactly the same. We think we remember what it means to make something meaningful, with intention. Do we?

Although I already lean towards one-of-a-kind, this morning the words and letters in the pages of my book caught me by surprise. A feeling welled up in me from long ago; it was a recognition that sharing 87 books made by hand could be a far greater achievement than selling 150,000 books printed by strangers.

Re-reading this, I realize my words have not captured how I felt. The variation from one page to another, and from one line to another, is a quality our society has misplaced.