Refilling Pen, Recharging Life

A friend once said he was stepping out to buy a pair of ink cartridges for his fountain pen.

His wife looked at him, amused, and said, “Why don’t you just order a dozen online and keep them in your drawer? It’ll be cheaper, quicker, and hassle-free.”

He smiled, pretended not to hear her, and went out anyway.

Because it wasn’t really about the cartridges. It was about the quiet joy of stepping out — seeing people, exchanging smiles, hearing the city hum. On his little errand, he met a few friendly faces, waved at a passing school van, admired a couple of cute babies, and even asked a stranger what the name of the lovely brown Shih Tzu she had.

By the time he came home, he had his pen refills — and a handful of tiny, human moments that made his day richer than any online order ever could.

There’s a quiet moral there: we’re not just here to tick boxes and get things done. We’re here to wander a little — to move, to notice, to connect.

Sure, technology makes life easier. You can have a dozen cartridges delivered to your doorstep without leaving your couch. But in that convenience, we often lose the beauty of wandering, of bumping into life by accident — and close the opportunity to go out again once the ink gets exhausted.

We are, after all, social animals — meant to move, to feel, to be part of the world around us.