Reject Modernity. Return To ThinkPad.

There comes a time in every tech enthusiast's life when one starts caring more about using tools fit for task than having the latest hardware specs. Usually, this is a result of realizing we actually hate technology—or, at least, its second-order effects on humanity—and thusly want it to be as simple as possible because that means less headache. So, we put away childish things.

Foregoing overkill technology in favor of simplicity is an enlightenment I wish my compatriots in publishing would arrive at, but since they're currently in a love affair with Jira, I'm not holding my breath.

I'll use my own work as an example of what this change looks like. I'm a writer by trade, and even before I did it professionally, I was a writer.

Writing is the lowest-demand task you can possibly do on a computer. Yet, when I was sixteen years old and working alongside a bunch of drug addicts at a deli, I used my first few paychecks to fund my custom computer build. It was outfitted with a quad-core CPU, 16 gigabytes of RAM, a dedicated graphics card, etc.

The thing is, I am not a gamer, a machine learning engineer, or a meteorologist. But that was of little consequence—I wanted the satisfaction of having a machine that I knew could handle anything I threw at it, even if all I ever did throw at it was Notepad++.

Time passed on. I left the deli and went to work for a tamer organization, where leadership may have done terribly offensive impressions of Chinese people every time someone in the office got takeout for lunch but at least were not raging alcoholics. Here, I began doing IT work professionally. I became somewhat disillusioned with the realities of working with computers full-time, and I never got around to modifying my custom PC like I had always intended.

It's now 2025. I work as a journalist reporting on laboratory software and IT. My dedicated writing machine is a ThinkPad X130e, a compact laptop from 2007 that was designed for use in educational environments. It's squat and sturdy, in much the same way John Steinbeck describes Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. Indeed, Ma Joad's grit is the only disposition that can withstand being stomped on daily by fourth graders wearing Sonic the Hedgehog sneakers.

My writing machine could survive being kicked into the sun. Meanwhile, Mac users on Reddit are afraid their $2,300 slab of brushed aluminum will be scratched by its stand.

But the Mac users and I are, by and large, doing the same thing: writing.

So if you're a writer, stop buying expensive computers. I promise that you do not need it. Just get a used ThinkPad off eBay for forty bucks and call it a day. You're wasting tremendous amounts of money buying Apple laptops and dongles and AirPods and $1,000 monitor stands.

My point is this: we should use technology appropriate for our applications, and we should view our gadgets, first and foremost, as tools to be used. Scuffs are the patina that signal real work is being done.