Professor R. Maes of the Universiteit van Amsterdam, Business School recently wrote a column for the
Journal for Convergence (South-Africa), entitled "Moleskine
or the Art of Taking Notice".
"…there is more to say about the use of a notebook… It goes back to a centuries-old praxis, including notorious notebooks adepts such as Francis Bacon and John Locke, where noteworthy phenomena are noted for the benefit of science or simply of one’s own curiosity. Etymological investigation makes clear that “to note” not only means “to write down” (from Latin notare) but equally well (and even first and foremost) “to get to know, to recognize” (from Latin gnoscere). Apart from the concrete act of writing, noting also refers to “taking notice of”, i.e. “becoming aware of” and “paying attention to”. Etymologically, the formation of a person through attentive observation and writing go hand in hand!
This etymological detour brings us back to the very essence of the use of a notebook: an aid annex a discipline to sharpen our observation, to show undivided attention for and to nourish inspiring memories of events, subjects, ideas and emotions of enduring personal and general interest. A notebook is not a passive collecting-point, yet an active invitation to live consciously. Nothing looks odd in a notebook, yet is the account of moments of value lived through.
Isn’t the weblog (or blog) a modern version of the handwritten notebook? It can undoubtedly be seen as a reaction to the standardized, reductionistic and impersonal way of dealing with information in present-day organizational information systems. However, blogs, in the first place being tools of communication, on average suffer from a double drawback: (1) most of them are restricted to broadcasting without any noticeable audience or for a small handful of like-minded friends only and (2) the very act of instant publishing on the web instead of deliberate writing contributes to the production of particularly uninteresting musings, if not pipe dreams. Therefore, a quite common feature of out of the ordinary blogs is that they are prepared using (you bet!) written notebooks viz. Moleskines…"
Read the pdf here.
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