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Comment by xfax | Hacker News Reader

Well, you made two points. One is that having a nicer pen wouldn't (shouldn't) make you want to write more. Two, that a $60 pen has no value besides making you feel opulent.

My response was to your second point where I assert that some people derive pleasure from things that others perceive as mundane. Eating at a 4-star Michelin restaurant for example can be loosely (very) compared to writing with a $60 pen. So it's not bizarre.

To your first point, deriving pleasure from doing something does indeed encourage you to do more of it. Even eating - compare eating a mediocre meal at a food court to a scrumptious meal prepared by your mother (or whoever cooks well in your family!). Sure, writing is not an infrequent exercise, so perhaps the analogy goes only so far, but the point remains that if you enjoy it, you are likely to do more of it.

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It does not encourage you to do more of it when it is solely an obligation. I think eating is a bad example because people eat for pleasure, whereas people only write for utility. People rarely if ever write simply because they enjoy writing. They write to convey or record information, If you remove the utilitarian obligation from writing, and make it solely an exercise in enjoyment, you have to disassociate the obligatory aspect of writing, as well as the functional result. I don't know about you, but I don't really see people transcribing the alphabet 1000 in a notebook for pleasure (or other such trivial applications of writing). When people write, they do it because they have to achieve some end. This is different from fine dining, where there is no end. You don't eat because you need nutrion, but because the meal brings pleasure.

My second assertion was not dismissing the pleasure found in using an expensive pen and feeling good, but merely an explanation of why I think it's silly. If one cares about having profligate writing instruments, more power to them. I, however, just want something that works well. In a pen, that is usually determined by the insert, which is why a $60 shell isn't important.

  > whereas people only write for utility.

  > When people write, they do it because they have to achieve some                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
  >  end.

I write stories for fun. There is no obligation to do so. Anecdotally, I'm not alone in this as several of my friends do the same. The only utility we ever get is that occasionally we turn these stories into games for each other or backgrounds for characters. So again, no obligation since a game ceases being a game when you _must_ do it, and none of us are obliged to run or play in them.

In that context, I've found that some writing instruments simply feel better. The Pentel Sharp mechanical pencils are particular nice -- for me -- vs other pencils, like the cheap Bic mechanicals. Same for pens, there are some 5-10$ pens that write so smoothly it's like they're gliding along the page versus many ballpoints that seem to drag along. Having a pleasant writing experience with good paper and pen leads to more nights or lunches spent just writing to write.

It encourages you to shift from other modes of recording information.

Taking pleasure in writing using a pen presumably moves you away from taking notes on your laptop, tablet or mobile phone. Thus it does encourage you to write more, even though in aggregate you are probably storing the same amount of information.

Have you never met someone who doodles and scribbles absently while bored? It's incredibly fun.

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