Handwriting

I miss writing. Not writing per se, but writing by hand … the act of putting pen to paper which today is obsolescent and fast becoming obsolete.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully appreciate the convenience of typing rather than writing things out longhand with pen or pencil. I am old enough to remember the days before word processors when office memos had to be typed out by secretaries. I marvel that they were able to reach speeds of 35 -40 words per minute with few, if any, mistakes. I also remember how difficult it was to white -out the occasional error .

When computers became common I was initially resistant to using them because I’d never learnt typing. I quickly changed because it was so much easier to compose my memos and articles. With computers, it is so easy to change words here and there, to shift sentences and paragraphs, to edit and revise. It would probably take me four or five times as long to write this piece if I had to write it out in pen or pencil. Not for me, the old way of doing things.

And yet…

I miss the physical act of writing and all the steps it entails.  Sharpening pencils. Getting out the writing paper, the eraser.  Sitting at the table staring at the blank page can sometimes be frightening but, oh, the pleasure of  getting the words down on the pristine unlined paper. Rounding the g’s, crossing the t’s, dotting at the i’s… it’s beautiful, it’s satisfying, it’s personal, it’s sensual. When I look at the completed page, I feel a sense of accomplishment. This is MINE. I don’t feel nearly the same pleasure as when I look at my type written work. Yes, it’s neat, it’s compact, there are no spelling mistakes thanks to Spellcheck but.. it is almost too easy.

Writing is also a link to the past, to others. I still have some few recipes in my mother’s handwriting, some letters that my father wrote. When I look at them, I can see them, my parents that is, as clearly as if I were looking at a photo. They have been gone many years now but I can clearly see their handwriting in my mind’s eye. I can’t say the same about my children’s handwriting. They do most of their writing on the computer and, except for their scrawled signatures, what their handwriting looks like.

Precisely because a word-processor is so easy to use we have seen a decline in writing skills, a carelessness in the way we communicate, a creeping disregard for the beauty of language.  Most people are just concerned with just getting the task of writing over with. They see no reason to be exact, no need to learn correct spelling . After all, that’s what Spellcheck is for, isn’t it? In much the same way that calculators have led to a loss if our mathematical ability, computers have caused a decline in our language skills.

When I started to write this piece, I was thinking primarily of the lost pleasures of writing by hand. I accept that typing on our computers is the way to go but I find opportunities to write in pen or pencil. For instance, at the discourses  we attend on Saturdays, I make copious notes. So do many other attendees but, even here there are some who can be seen tapping away on their I-phones. You’ll never see me doing that. Never.