I love writing writing. And by writing, I mean with a fountain pen, a Sharpie, even my finger on a foggy window. This makes me an anomaly in 2012, because it seems like nobody else does.
A few years ago, I traveled through Europe with a group of college students on a semester abroad. At each city we visited, I bought postcards and stamps, and wrote to my family. On one sunny afternoon, I addressed a postcard to my parents in a tower of the Heidelberg Castle, when a curious student asked me what I was doing. "Why don't you just send a photo?" she said, holding up her phone and doing just that.
"Because, it's not the same. It's not the same at all." I waxed rhapsodic about the journey my written words would take over time and distance. I swooned over the delight of getting greetings from far away places in the mail. She looked at me like I was an alien.
So like I said, I'm an anomaly. And while I consider my penmanship nice, to other people it's really special. I've actually had people at work come to me and ask me to write things for them because they don't think their handwriting is good enough. I'm grateful for the compliment, but a bit baffled by it. Handwriting is a fundamental communication skill. But somehow, over time, it has become really devalued. I think I've whittled it down to a few reasons:
1. People think it's antiquated
2. It can be inefficient and slow
3. The awful way many of us learned handwriting in school
If you agree with any or all of the above, good. I'm with you. But there are still valid reasons to care about how you write things, and here they are.
It's considerate. Like clear speech, legible handwriting proves you care about conveying your message clearly. That said, poor handwriting is like the written equivalent of mumbling. And because writing by hand forces you to slow down, you have time to think about what you're saying, resulting in more refined ideas. Whether it's a post-it note or fine stationery, we pause before putting pen to paper, because there's more commitment involved. And writing by hand requires us to know the beginning, middle, and end of what we're saying.
Permanence. With so much of our writing done electronically, we rarely get to savor the treat of reading letters anymore. And I'm talking about letters you want to get, not from your insurance company or your doctor's office. Is anyone else bummed that love letters are just for Valentine's Day now? Or that most photography will never be printed? I admit, I use the heck out of Instagram. It's a fabulous way to share spontaneous, fun, beautiful moments of our lives. But my home is also full of framed photographs, and albums of pictures, old and new. If something happened to my phone, camera, or computer, much of my history would be lost. That's why I print the ones that matter, so I can live with them when I'm unplugged.
Romance. Does anyone remember the thrill of getting a note in your locker from that special someone in high school? It's a bit sad that young love often begins with a text message these days. I'm not saying the feeling is any less, but a text soon scrolls out of existence when new ones arrive. Or when the phone is upgraded, which is like every year. There's something incredibly alluring about the physicality of writing a letter to someone you fancy. About the act of choosing a pen and the right paper and applying intense focus to something you care about. That's downright sexy. And yet so rare.
But to be fair, I'm a realist, and I live in the modern world, too. I do a ton of texting and typing. Heck, I've got arthritis in three fingers of my "mousing-hand" to prove it. The convenience of copy-paste alone is one of the prime achievements of modern technology. But I still doodle on napkins, jot down phone messages, and make shopping lists. We all do. All the same, our dependence on gadgets requires us to do less and less actual writing. That doesn't mean we should stop caring about it, though. Why not make those increasingly rare moments pleasurable?
You don't need to bust out your calligraphy pen (though I do love a well-ground fine italic nib), just give it a try. And forget those awful Palmer Method letters you learned in first grade. Write like you. Slow down a little and give your words shape with the same care you choose them. Your penmanship might be expressive or understated, but like it or not, your handwriting is the way your personality appears on paper. Be yourself, give it some effort, and be pleasantly surprised by the result.
Until paper and pens go away completely (not likely), you have a chance to make something enduring and beautiful, no matter how you dot your Is or cross your Ts. There's room for pixels and penstrokes in life. Let's take the time to enjoy both.
