Highlighting Now

Today in our committee meeting I watched one of the office members pull out a highlighter and circle a newly edited part of our master agreement which was already printed in red.  It made me very happy.  Perhaps it's the love of organization and detail.  Maybe it's exercising the full use of office supplies, those magical things which seem to promise that we can do anything, become anything, and organize anything to a new level of efficiency that will clear away confusion, create more time, and make money.  If only we had the right organizer, the right paper clips, files, envelopes, pens, and holders for those pens.  The use of this highlighter, for what seemed a redundant action, poked a little pleasure in me that was sustained even longer in a detailed meeting that ended up not being as mijikai as anyone had thought it would be.  We covered a lot of ground, clarifying and sharing things, putting things in their proper places, organizing ideas, shuffling words.  And always, even at the risk of redundancy, being as clear as possible.

It's a funny thing that as much as Japan has a reputation for being technologically savvy, the Japanese are very paper oriented.  Fax machines win over emails.  But beyond the opportunity to use more office supplies, I wonder if the Japanese aren't on to something.  Cyber attacks, hacking, privacy violations;  these seem to be growing threats in today's world.  And perhaps someday the Japanese will be the only ones left standing, their battery powered fax machines craddled under their arms.  The prominence of paper hard copies, face-to-face meetings, and phone calls all encourage an information exchange that requires more focus than an email read between Facebook viewings and forgotten for several days.

Perhaps time moves a little more slowly in this sort of world.  Perhaps things can be a little redundant.  But in the process they are not so easily overlooked, ignored, or shoved aside.  And in the process, the process becomes important, something which can be strangely comforting.  It's not that the goal disappears, but I might as well enjoy my highlighter in the meantime.  And something about that seems strangely satisfying in and of itself.