Here's hoping the furniture of the future will be as awesomely interactive as this Post-it note desk.
![[optional image description]](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/postit615.jpeg)
When you're a kid, surfaces are made to be doodled on. Walls are crayon-canvases; wooden tables seem naked without some colorful finger paint prettying them up. It takes a while -- from parents' perspective, a very long while -- for us to learn to contain our decorational impulses. Creativity, we're gradually conditioned to accept, is best confined to paper.
The lesson must be learned, but the learning is sort of sad nonetheless. And it's why I love this desk: a giant Post-it note that exists to be mucked up by random writings and drawings. The work of Lisbon-based designer Miguel Mestre, the desk is so retro that it's actually cutting-edge. Paper is an age-old technology, sure, but paper as desk -- furniture that demands to be doodled on -- seems optimized for our particular moment. Though anything can trigger an idea -- and though we humans have always found ways to be creative no matter what our environment -- inspiration is, more than ever, everywhere. With the always-on Internet, with the radio, with TV and podcasts and ebooks and Twitter, we are in a constant state of latent ingenuity. You never know when your next Brilliant Idea (or your next Kind of Boring But Still Worth Noting Idea) is going to hit you.