I refuse to buy an expensive pen. I know about them. I've researched them. I just don’t want one.
It’s not a money thing. I’ve spent a lot of money on cheap pens (hah). And in doing so, I’ve learned a lot about pens—but more importantly, I’ve formed strong opinions about technique and tools.
The reason I don’t want an expensive pen is simple: I don’t want the presence of the tool to distract me from the purpose of the tool.
I know myself. If I had an expensive pen, a whole universe would start to revolve around it: The rituals. The routines. The anxiety of losing it. The pressure to treat it like something precious.
All of that would get in the way of the one thing I actually want to do: To write. To make sense of the mess that's in my mind. To express myself through scribbling.
This idea—technique over tools—is something I return to again and again.
Knives
The first time I became aware of it was over a decade ago, when I worked in the world of restaurants before entering the world of tech.
Like many people drawn to culinary, I was obsessed with knives.
One day, I’ll get that Global knife set, I thought. Then I’ll be a real chef. Then I’ll be good. Then I’ll be somebody.
I focused on blade height, grip comfort, steel type. I studied the tool, sweated the details, convinced that the tool would define the outcome.
And when I used a freshly sharpened chef knife, it felt great. I felt great.
Then one day, I found myself at my parents’ place using some random, probably dull, non-chef knife to prep dinner.
My cuts weren't precise. The feeling was off. The shape was wrong. The knife was inadequate.
This knife is dumb. This is a bad knife, I thought.
The onion cutter
Fast forward some vague time later—purely by accident—I remember seeing a random video online. It was some worker in India cutting a mountain of onions. They were using what I could only describe as a tiny, sharpened ruler. It didn't look like a knife at all, but somehow they were able to masterfully blaze through onion after onion with the precision and speed that I could only aspire to one-day have.
If this person is able to do this with a tiny, sharpened, ruler-like thing, what excuse do I have? What knife do I really need? What is a "real" knife, anyway?
From that point on, I stopped using chef knives at home. These days—and for many years now—I cut everything with a sharpened steak knife.
I don’t let the knife dictate what I can do with it. I don’t let the tool get in the way of me developing my technique. I let the technique define what the tool can do.
Everything, every day
This mindset has followed me into every corner of my life:
From the steak knives in my kitchen, to my ~$10 XLR microphone, to the cheap, no-frills pens I use every day.
All of these every day things are reminders:
It’s not about getting great stuff. It’s about getting great at stuff.
To honour the craft. To focus on the work. To choose technique over tools.