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