handwriting

Handwriting seems to be something which degrades over time when coupled with the use of keyboards. I used to have highly decorative, flowing handwriting which people admired. Now it just looks like Arabic and even I can't read it, and any letter or card I am forced to write, or form I have to fill in, with a pen will have gazillions of crossings out, and look hideously messy. Thankfully, I am in a field of work where job adverts never say: "Apply in writing"..

Keyboards are just better, let's face it. Most computer people can type at the speed at which they think. In the time it takes to write something with a pen, you could have done 10 word perfect (unintentional pun there) versions on a keyboard, had several cups of tea and gone for a walk. Down with these primitive tools!

From my teen years on, I used to write, longhand, hours and hours a day. It was a release from the things I was going through--and the things I wasn't going through. The whole experience seems one of ever-growing wholeness. Terribly subjective, I know. And maybe not even completely true, even for me.

But these absolutely identical keys, these identical images upon identical screens in front of us. Lego blocks.

I can't help but wonder if for all of this convenience we haven't lost something.

Hand"writ`ing (?), n.

1.

The cast or form of writing peculiar to each hand or person; chirography.

2.

That which is written by hand; manuscript.

The handwriting on the wall, a doom pronounced; an omen of disaster.

Dan. v. 5.

© Webster 1913.