I have always loved writing-both the
mental creation of a story and the actual mechanics of putting pencil to paper
thus allowing thoughts to flow into real-time. It’s a novelty, really, the way
writing enables the seamless transition from brain, to pencil, to appearance
before your eyes on paper. It reminds me of the summer camp experiment of writing
with lemon juice and then heating the paper-the words appear where none were
before! This exercise I apparently have in common with British writer, Philip
Hensher, an award winning author that mentions the lemon-ink trick his is
recent treatise on handwriting called The
Missing Ink.
I picked up the book, drawn to it
due to the cover image of his subtitle The
Lost Art of Handwriting and knew I’d instantly be a commiserator when I
read his opening paragraph:
“About six months ago, I realized that I had no idea what the
handwriting of a good friend of mine looked like. I had known him for over a
decade, but somehow we had never communicated using handwritten notes…I had no
idea whether his handwriting was bold or crabbed, sloping or upright, italic or
rounded, elegant or slapdash.”
How many
friends did I have whose writing I could not aptly recall? Hmmm, a few, I
suspect, but surely not close friends!
I couldn’t be certain, so I read on:
“…it seems handwriting
is about to vanish…is anything going to be lost apart from the habit of writing
with pen and paper? Will some part of our humanity, as we have always
understood it, disappear as well?”
Handwriting-vanish?
Surely not! I love all that nice penmanship implies about a person. And, I
actually enjoy writing-with all of its potential for calluses, pen stains, hand
cramps, and even the odd blue-gray shadows on the sides of fingers. Sadly, if I
am honest, it’s true I spend most of my time scribbling notes quickly and
messily. My handwriting has become more of a scrawled,
shoved-to-close-to-the-margins habit than an exercise in creativity or style.
Yes, it’s really an abomination of the “art” once considered to indicate a
person’s educational level or status. Though I blush with shame when I
chicken-scratch a note or an unsightly letter to a colleague (yes, I do send handwritten
thank you’s and notes of congratulations), I am set to wondering-does
handwriting matter?
Hensher raises the question
repeatedly in his book, but before he does, he shares some ‘benefits’ of
handwriting. One I particularly like:
“…you could call up
exactly the right word by pen chewing, an entertainment which every different one
contributes to in its own way.”
Who among
us has not used the pen-chewing approach to writer’s block? What are future
generations to do-bite the OtterBox, indestructible case of their iPhones?
He also
points out the relationship we have with writing and writing instruments-I
certainly have my favorite pens and pencils.
“The pen has been with
us for so many millennia that is seems not just warm, but almost alive, like
another finger.”
While I have a favorite pen that
glides nicely across the page, balanced by a perfect weightiness, I certainly
have no love for the irritating touchscreen keyboard of my phone or the
clickty-clack of my laptop keyboard. In fact, my favorite pencil does not
betray me by creating errors I never intended! If I jot something in error, it’s
my fault and not because the ‘auto-correct’ (Auto-correct, which all the while
claims it “knows” how I type, when in fact it does not know what I
intend to say!) has a habit of creating rather embarrassing type-o’s!
Is the
keyboard or touchscreen the evolution of penmanship? Eek-the thought! Hensher credits Marx with an
interesting fact saying he believed civilization’s advance was marked by the
fact that humans have opposable thumbs.
“It was impressive (that Marx apparently ‘guessed’) that sooner or later men would invent a
way of writing that required only the movement of thumbs.”
Now with my once practiced and even
(a little) pretty penmanship disheveled I wonder if it matters. What does one’s
handwriting indicate about them today? If you write something in a messy way,
is it now excusable because the reader will assume a phone to text or create a
voice note was (gasp!) unavailable?
“…We have surrendered
our handwriting for something more mechanical, less distinctively human, less
telling about ourselves…”
I almost feel now an urgent need to
correct the handwriting that has fallen into disarray and carelessness. I think
I will endeavor to improve while people still
read handwritten correspondence lest the need for it fall away completely.
I’d rather my last handwritten notes be fetching, not only fastidiously drafted!
Take a look at The Missing Ink. Maybe you should also pen someone a note-it might
soon be your last chance!
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| Principal, Prosperity Consulting, LLC |
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