Spring Break
The lost art of writing by hand in the digital age
by Hannah Kirsch
Deputy Editor
Op-Ed | 8/26/08
Posted online at 12:23 AM EST on 8/26/08
When I was solicited to write an article for this issue's Forum section, I had no idea where to begin. Discussion of politics all too easily draws me into tired, inexpert rhetoric, and we've all had enough of the finer points of Barack Obama's appeal to the college student in any case. The latest scandal has yet to strike our campus, and I do not yet have a complaint with the administration that might provide some entertaining rant fodder. So, recursively, I put pen to paper on putting pen to paper.
Since the end of last semester, I have been exchanging letters with friends-the first time in years that, unprompted by an essay exam, I have sat down to pen anything of length rather than simply dashing off an e-mail. And I have discovered-or, more accurately, rediscovered-an interesting quirk of the literally written word. When there is no "delete" key close at hand, when prose is splashed across the page in curls of ink in a person's own unique patterns, the process of recording thought gains a sort of indelible, organic truth that typing lacks.
Even if a page is shredded and a letter restarted, the intemperate expression that perhaps prompted the abandonment of the first attempt remains in the evidence of the crumpled paper. Every slip of the pen, spelling error or lapse in logic persists, even after corrections have been implemented and final drafts drawn up.
This, combined with the fact that any editing requires considerably more effort than the perfunctory tap of a backspace, encourages a deeper level of personal commitment than the typical word-processed document. Thoughts must be weighed more carefully before their recording on paper. They flow more honestly and freely to the page than when typed in a stilting staccato to appear on a computer screen.
I kept a trip journal this summer in a location that lacked electricity, so, by necessity as well as inclination, I wrote with a pen. I noticed the same not-altogether-unpleasant uncertainty of letter-writing-constantly risking absurdity in a medium through which the self-conscious crossing-out of embarrassing errors and trite or too-true phrases remains glaringly and almost mockingly as evidence. I say this is not altogether unpleasant because when reading a journal entry or one of those letters written by a dear friend, the words possess a palpable humanity that all but the choicest e-mails lack.
Since the end of last semester, I have been exchanging letters with friends-the first time in years that, unprompted by an essay exam, I have sat down to pen anything of length rather than simply dashing off an e-mail. And I have discovered-or, more accurately, rediscovered-an interesting quirk of the literally written word. When there is no "delete" key close at hand, when prose is splashed across the page in curls of ink in a person's own unique patterns, the process of recording thought gains a sort of indelible, organic truth that typing lacks.
Even if a page is shredded and a letter restarted, the intemperate expression that perhaps prompted the abandonment of the first attempt remains in the evidence of the crumpled paper. Every slip of the pen, spelling error or lapse in logic persists, even after corrections have been implemented and final drafts drawn up.
This, combined with the fact that any editing requires considerably more effort than the perfunctory tap of a backspace, encourages a deeper level of personal commitment than the typical word-processed document. Thoughts must be weighed more carefully before their recording on paper. They flow more honestly and freely to the page than when typed in a stilting staccato to appear on a computer screen.
I kept a trip journal this summer in a location that lacked electricity, so, by necessity as well as inclination, I wrote with a pen. I noticed the same not-altogether-unpleasant uncertainty of letter-writing-constantly risking absurdity in a medium through which the self-conscious crossing-out of embarrassing errors and trite or too-true phrases remains glaringly and almost mockingly as evidence. I say this is not altogether unpleasant because when reading a journal entry or one of those letters written by a dear friend, the words possess a palpable humanity that all but the choicest e-mails lack.
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