How Progress Is Limiting Our Growth
The first mechanical pencil was patented in 1822, after centuries of carving characters and graphite sticks. It was an important moment for drawing and writing, and for all the possibilities it created. However, this innovation also brought up an important idea for contemplation. Hundreds of years after the mechanism for mechanical pencils was created, we are still trying to innovate it and fix it, to almost no success. The main mechanism of these pencils remains the same. So when is it finally time to stop and realize something is fine exactly how it is?
Humans are just one mammalian species living among millions of other species in the world. We like to think we are so different, but we share many common characteristics with other animal species. We all have to eat, sleep, and communicate with others. We all get hurt, we all are born and then we all die. What makes us different is our need for progress.
Humans are constantly thinking and inventing and innovating to make our lives and world better for ourselves and future generations. We are a species that thinks about what happens tomorrow and what happened ten years from tomorrow. There is always something more we can be doing. This is what makes us the dominant mammalian species on earth. However, there comes a point when it is progress simply for the sake of something new, even if it does not benefit anyone.
One major reason mechanical pencils have gained popularity is because of their claims to be more environmentally friendly than their wooden counterparts. In some cases this may be true. Many mechanical pencils are made of sturdy materials such as high density plastics, or even metal, and because of this can be reused for a very long time, unlike wooden pencils which last until they run out of pencil. On the other side of the spectrum, however, we have mechanical pencils made of cheap plastics such as polystyrene, which unlike wood is not compostable. According to Jacob Leibenluft, who wrote an article comparing the two options, “while the mechanical pencil has the advantage of being reusable, it’s almost certainly going to end up in a landfill at the end of its life”.
Maybe mechanical pencils are more popular simply because they are newer, and ever changing. And in this process of innovation and creating new things from what we already have, the original purpose can sometimes be lost. In centuries of innovation, mechanical pencils have remained virtually the same. A small mechanism pushes a piece of graphite up when the back is pressed. It is a simple design that has not changed in almost 200 years. So why do people use mechanical pencils? Simply for the sake of innovation? Or for an artificial sense of having something more fancy and rich, or just because everyone else has one? Mechanical pencils represent humanity’s need for something new and pretty, our need to innovate for the sake of innovation, and not necessarily progress.
However, there is no doubt that humanity’s need for progress is what has allowed our species to survive and evolve for so long. Without our inherent need to keep doing more and making things better, we would be stuck. There would never be any change and humanity would slowly begin to get too comfortable. Progress is undoubtedly important, but progress for the sake of progress is not helping us be better, it is limiting our growth as a society. Nevertheless, the need for progress is what makes us human and what makes us different from every other species in the world.