I Would Hate to Be a No. 2 Pencil






09.03.25I read this passage in a design book and forced myself to find a deeper meaning in it, frankly because I did not like what I thought it was trying to say.
The meaning I have settled on is this: I would hate to be a No. 2 pencil.

I do not use No. 2 anymore. It smudges. It touches the paper in a lukewarm way, neither expressive like charcoal nor decisive like a marker. It loses its point, its precision, and dulls quickly. It allows for erasure, but never a clean one. There is always a trace left behind, a kind of deceit. It pretends to be temporary, yet clings to everything it touches.

A pencil is the default choice, selected without much thought, out of habit. It is comfortable but never chosen for a special purpose or occasion. It is gray, unmemorable, and ordinary.

A pencil’s job is not structural transparency. There are too many variations, too many possible marks, HB, 2B, 4H, and it constantly shifts between clarity and blur.

A pencil does not quite honor an idea. Its existence is to approximate, to prepare for the thing that really matters later. Think of all the sketches you made in pencil only to erase them once the outline was decided. It feels like a draft. It offers no permanence. You know it will fade and it will not last.

I like to leave a mark.





AMIE TIAN