The author never gets around to actually answering the question or even framing it in terms that can be coherently addressed.
It seems a comment by a stranger causes him to question whether the mug of rarely used pens & pencils and a stack of unused notebooks he's reluctant to mar by "actually writing in them" is a fetish.
The essay wanders around remarking on random writing-related events then pretentiously exclaims that "the tradition that informs that engagement (of writers with their instruments) extends much deeper into literary history."
I think the author needs to spend more time on honing his writing craft then worrying about what that mug of unused pencils represents.
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