Handwriting

A musing, and maybe a bit of a rant:

Like many of us my mind whirls trying to make out patterns in the world around us. I find it interesting that with all the digital platforms that engross us the written word is alive and well, but handwriting it has fallen wayside. A little while back, I wrote a thank you letter to someone and they placed it on display because they hadn't received one before. The very script they are teaching my children to write has been simplified--serifs and flourishes removed--so they can get past the subject more quickly. I don't mean to demean, I just feel like we've lost something that should be reclaimed.

I write by hand a lot. Ironically, I loathed cursive in school and the moment they stopped requiring it I stopped using it. As an adult I'd completely forgotten it and had to relearn it entirely. Now, over a decade later, I've written thousands of pages. I take my notes by hand, I've written many hundred letters, and I'll just write because I find the motions relaxing. It astounds me how novel the experience has become to a person when I give someone a handwritten letter or note.

Maybe there is hope. Schools are starting to teach cursive again stating it's better for the brain, for memory, and helps students read historical documents. Those things are good, but still something has changed and I wonder what will come back.

In this unique little corner of the internet, I wonder: Who else still loves the hand written script, or another fading art that shouldn't be forgotten?

pandion

I always felt jealous of the people that have a nice handwriting.

My handwriting is terrible, and not for the lack of trying!

So therefore I hated it because it was a cause for pain and agony throughout my schoolyears, and also kept me back from getting ahead with my education! Every aspect of school in my country was, and still is, handwriten.

So ever since I got my hands on a mobile, I never ever wrote by hand anything again. Not even a note to myself, or a shopping list.

I am in love with digital text that gave me the means to express mysel, and make me understand that I actually like writing

ralfwause

I have started journaling again a couple of weeks ago, but after realising, that writing more than a few short bulletpoints made my hands ache really bad (i think the muscles therein are now much more adapted to writing on a keyboard than with a ballpoint pen) i had to look for a way to make it more comfortable.

Well, the transition to a fountain pen (albeit a cheap one) and moving back to cursive brought really fast relieve and now, just about a week after changing my writing style i am now again able to write longer texts by hand without any discomfort. I really like it and i think i will stick to it.

taterinx

Gosh, I remember primary school, those distinct handwriting books and the pen license (at least that's what my school did, where you had to write in pencil until you could prove that you were a cursive pro).

Highschool was where things started to clash for me. We still had to write for everything, but I was getting really into the studying community online (mainly, YouTube and Instagram), which were massively aesthetic focused. With this, my obsession with trying to perfect print handwriting that looks textbook ready.

Nowadays I've got different modes to switch to (cursive for journaling, print for my planner), so I appreciate both of those influences in my life, but I will always ESPECIALLY appreciate how beautiful and fun handwriting can be. Actually, a few months ago, my partner surprised me with a handwritten love letter, and it was the sweetest thing ever.

a1sound

>pen license

Those were some interesting times... I remember my school only had these weird 'handwriting pens' that felt really crispy(?) to write with on the page. Put me off writing with pens for a solid 5 years until I got to secondary and could go out and buy my own cheap biros!

contrarian

Send in a postcard to postbox.garden :)

lostinthewoods

This makes me very happy.

beefox

one of my dismays about my multitude of disabilities is that my handwriting has always looked terrible and been painful to write. its why i love looking at calligraphy, literally taking hand writing and turning it into an art! even though i never could well, i think its a really important skill because even in this tech dominated life, there are reguarly moments where you need to record information without tech, even if it is just quickly writing down a phone number, even just a mesurement on a piece of wood! its a beautiful thing

daytrick

I think I write a decent amount by hand. I've got three different types of handwriting - cursive, neat print, and scrawl print - and I use them for different situations.

I also taught myself to write with my non-dominant hand, because it sounded like a cool thing a secret agent might know how to do, but oddly I can really only do cursive with that. It comes in handy though. I tend to use that hand when drafting schoolwork, and I think that helped initially (compared to using my dominant hand) because coordinating movements took more effort, so I had more time to think about what I wanted to say, while I wrote, but now it's just a habit.

george

I hand write a lot. And every time I open my journal in front of anyone they always comment on how neat it is. (Which I don't find difficult because I use a dotted journal... and I guess I organise my thoughts somewhat before committing them to paper).

I actually bounce back and forth between cursive and a more legible 'print' hand.

But for sure... handwritten for the win! (I experimented briefly with having a handwritten corner of the web, but it was arduous to create and maintain!)

lostinthewoods

I'm curious to hear your theories on how to make a "handwritten corner of the web"

Definitely some challenges there, but I bet it would have a very unique aesthetic.

george

So I handwrote pages in my dotted journal. Then uploaded them as images with imagemaps to handle the links. For sure a unique aesthetic and something that could work if I had a good tablet (like a remarkable?) for digitising handwriting directly... but then again, I liked the fact it was ink.

So yeah... I guess it's really just misusing the digital world... and since I value simplicity, text-only wins over handwriting. (Of course, handwriting isn't so easily seachable either without OCR/AI)

lostinthewoods

Let's not confuse art and function. A $15 Casio watch is pretty much better than a Rolex when it comes to function and durability. However, the Rolex is a work of mechanical and visual art. The world is better with both in it.

george

Very true. Thank you for picking me up on that!