The Existential Contemplation of Paper (H. Sukut)

Often in this modern age a paper must ask its wafery compatriots, "Why?

"Must our existence be reduced to such petty plights as the obnoxious Sissy-frass crushing us into balls and throwing us into bins, doing this again and again till it seems an eternity. What more are we to do? We're coming upon an age of e-readers, and fancy TV's; an age of e-mails and the damned Facebook. Is our fate to be among the ancient walls of Egypt, the commandment stones, and the walls of the Neanderthal's cave? Are we just the next link in the chain of written communication?

"Surely we cannot be reduced to mere stories told by a grandfather to some skeptical child. Is this our new meaning? Is rotting on a shelf, or in a notebook collecting dust under a bed to be our new reality? Some might say, 'Perhaps its best we let the old give way to the new. Such is the way of things.'

“And it is to him I say, no. We must not be reduced to such insignificance. It is we who forged nations. It is we who defined the character of man. It is we who brought the strongest men to their knees with tears in their eyes. We who carried the succulent words of Milton and the potent words of Swift. And yes friends, it was us who moved man to this day where he may abandon us for convenience’s sake.

“We cannot go quietly into that dark night. We must make man realize the beauty and power we posses. We must bring them to the dusty crannies where we sing the rage of Achilles, and ponder the musings of Socrates. We must remind him that we are inestimable.”


-H. Sukut

The Existential Problem of Paper (I. Anderson)

Non-verbal methods of communication and expression have existed since the dawn of mankind. The origin of stringed and wind instruments for the accompaniment of song can be traced to the descendants of Cain. The ancient Phoenicians and Greeks used tablets of stone and clay to write on, and then the Egyptians developed papyrus. Now we live in a world where the printed word is available on paper at the click of a button. All these methods have been tried and proven over centuries, yet the fact remains that as a part of a fallen order they are all flawed. Paper can be lost, burned, crushed, stained, shredded, and sliced. These maladies however plague all physical things in our world, and therefore cannot be attributed to paper as uniquely existential. The existential problem with paper lies not in its molecular makeup or the process in which it is made, but rather the words and thus the ideas it is capable of conveying.

 Language is a tool, and paper is one of the mediums through which it is used, and therefore paper is only as powerful as the words printed on it. Edward Bulwer-Lytton stated, “The pen is mightier than the sword”, nowhere is this truth seen more clearly than in the words of scripture.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12

Words as tools are capable of destruction or healing, of conveying truth or nursing deception. History has proved the strength of the written word over and over. The writing on the wall described in Daniel lead to the fall of one of the greatest empires in history, the writings of Rousseau laid the groundwork for the bloody French Revolution, and the Communist Manifesto created ripples in our society that continue to define our culture today. The existential problem with “paper” lies in the weakness of our own human nature, and flawed intellect, yet through that same medium which over and over has proven deadly in the hands of the wicked, God has given us the most profound and solid truth, His Word.


-I. Anderson

The Existential Problem of Paper (N. McCoy)

Paper is taken for granted. It is used indiscriminately and without attention to it's origin. For paper to be produced large swaths of trees are torn from the hills, leaving nothing but bare earth behind. The truth is that our current excess of paper comes at the expense of natural beauty.

Despite its ubiquity, paper deserves to be used efficiently and at a prudent pace. Indeed, an abundance of paper serves to devalue the text written across so many pages. Where there is no limit to paper, there is no limit to the thoughts and ideas which we may record. There is no standard to which our ideas must rise in order to be etched onto a page. If paper was used sparingly a writer would be forced to contemplate and appraise his opinions rather than leap to fill the page with every idle musing.

The abundance of paper is perhaps its most surprising fault. We aimlessly scratch and scribble with no respect for paper's heritage. Indeed, wood fibers have undergone a dramatic transformation by the time they settle on our desks in the form of a stark white template.

It is possible to counteract this loss of natural beauty by filling each sheet of paper with beauty of our own. The memories of those sacrificial trees may be honored by covering paper with only the richest texts and drawings.

-N. McCoy