The Lost Art of Handwritten Message
A random thought early this morning.
Are we losing the art of sending handwritten messages? (Ironically, this post is being typed on a Mac).
Back in the days when we had to grab a pen or pencil to write our messages, things were so much different. A personal message was an elaborate act. We would be thinking whether to use a fast, barely legible cursive for a work memo, or put effort in making the best calligraphy to impress the object of our affection.
It was the times when our emotions channeled through our fingers, down to the waiting plain sheets. The angry presses his pen so hard it leaves marks of rage on the pages below. The amorous gently glides her fingers, making art of love with the alphabets. The grieving sheds teardrops that forever reside between the lines.
Museums love to exhibit great writings of great men past. The sketches of Leonardo da Vinci, the love letters of Soekarno, the visions of JFK. Handwritten letters, diaries, and journals used to be such a romantic records of passing thoughts, dreams, and desires.
We are now living the era of the digital texts, where letters are just binary codes; cloned, copied, pasted, forwarded. Between our finger tips, came the gap of electronic pulses that form text on a screen.
All ‘I love you’ (with the same font) look the same. So do all the ‘I miss you’.
We no longer doodle our smiles. We take our smileys from “stock emoticons”, at the tap of finger. No more individual smiley. We merely borrow our smiles from the smartphone, chat app, and OS makers.
Few are lamenting the lost art of handwritten messages. Which is rather sad. Studies show that handwriting helps brain development of babies and also improves adult’s cognitive functions. (“How Handwriting Trains The Brain” in WSJ).
Perhaps what we need is sending a personal handwritten message to our dear ones, occasionally. Perhaps we need to rekindle the magic of greeting cards, with carefully thought scribbles. We may think our handwriting is not good, but it is still OUR handwriting, not just electronic pulses.
Perhaps when we stop writing and only rely on typing, a bit of our humanity is lost.
So this morning I decided to send a handwritten message to my wife. Yes, it is not real ink. It was written with a stylus on a tablet, and was attached to an e-mail. But it was still my own handwriting. And it bears my personality, in fact, my very own soul, like no ‘application’ or ‘software’ can do.
It feels good 🙂
Categories: Random Insight
The Laughing Phoenix 
Not for medical doctor though, you are sick with the ‘hand writing’ and wish for the binary code :p
Ok, joking. There always be upside and downside for each step, and I think so does writing. The upside is we can write faster, and no such thing like unreadable writing (yes, I’m talkin to you Doc) but it just lost its art and *ahem* our hobby to ‘read’ signature holder 😉
I always love handwritings. Call me old-fashioned, I still use literally-note-book for my daily activity. It helps me to remember things. Kalo bikin reminder dgn cara ditulis, maka gue akan lebih inget itu dibandingkan dgn gue ketik.
Try it 🙂
It won’t hurt those tree that much. Tetep pakai kertas bekas dan jgn buang-buang space di kertas.
Anyway, always like your posts, Om 🙂
Damn! Bener juga!
Yang bener juga ini membenarkan yang mana om?
I’m currently in a long distance relationship. Before I started to date him, we were pen pals. He and I certainly use text messages, phone and Skype for daily conversations now, but we still send hand-written letters to each other, at least once every month 😀
I despise broadcasted seasonal greetings as well so I have started to send literal greeting cards via postal service since 2 years ago. It feels good!
called me old fashion too, saya juga masih suka nulis di buku terutama untuk kerja, I do this since 2001 when I got my first job and I still have of those work writtings, just to see my improvement. lucu juga kalo baca tulisan-tulisan jaman dulu.
Co cweet deh om, maybe for the next you cud do the handwritten message with the real ink or pencil for ur wife, I’m sure it’ll be more emotional btw I still do handwriting but not to send a message to others but for taking a notes while I’m working at the office and to fill my personal diary (jadul amat gw yaakkk)
love your post om,
I do still handwritting, even i couldn’t read it clearly after two days i wrote it.
Reblogged this on See, Hear, Write It!.
Reblogged this on little thing and commented:
nice thought
still do, “beruntunglah” saya setua ini masih jadi mahasiswa, setiap kali UTS dan UAS ledessss jari tengah saya karena kebanyakan menulis hehe..,
Yay!
Sampe sekarang masih suka terharu klo liat ato nemu tulisan tangan almarhumah Mammi who passed away 6 years ago.. Meskipun itu cm sekedar coretan di secarik kertas biasa. Handwriting just so personal and can express many things.
Aaawwww :’)