On Hand-Writing (Thank Yous)

For the last several weeks, I've been retraining myself how to write with a pen and paper, mostly so I can write letters of thanks. In the process of typing about writing, I've realized that I'm learning to do more than that. I'm relearning to explore, to question questions and the tools we use to do so. How technologies structure our lives and vice versa in a way related, yet somehow different to the ways I've been doing the same thing in HU6112. I'm speaking abstractly, but in essence, I'm learning how to make letters again literally and metaphorically. I'm learning how to experience living, again. To open up my desk drawer and become wide-eyed with curiosity and excitement. This is what I've paid attention to and remembered so far in relation to relearning how to write by hand:

• The way I hold the pen shapes my technique and the letters and vice versa. (What type of pen am I using? Why? What am I holding the pen with? How? Where? Using what language?)
• I now have a use for cursive and understand why it's useful after changing my pen holding style. (Are there multiple styles of cursive? Why?)
• I understand that a Hallmark gold seal is not even close to the experience of creating a wax seal (Why wax? What type? What techniques exist?). One cannot burn oneself with a sticker, nor does it take a little practice to get the sticker to apply the way one wants it (Why not wax stickers?). There is no uniqueness to each sticker. Even though the stamping tool facilitates duplication, each seal is slightly different, slightly inconsistent. Also, as a side note, the wax stick stays painfully hot for longer than it takes the seal to cool (Why not use a liquid that dries solid instead of melting a solid to liquid and letting it solidfy?)
• When I type or print, I am not aware of the individual letters I write. However, I am now painfully aware of how many "t's" and "i's" are in "that" and "this," as well as how often I use those words (What languages require the least muscle control to write by hand?). Attitude, accessibility, invisible, and potential are all words that are much less fun to write in cursive than type. Writing by hand changes my vocabulary, and sometimes I'll make up a new structure for a sentence when I make an error. Rather than hitting backspace, I play jazz with words. No going back. Jazz would not be a particularly fun word to write. Writing to insult, criticize, or throw words at anyone's face in anger becomes much harder, and less worthy of the effort when it takes a cognitive effort to write legibly. In the same respect, one might expect authors to choose their words with greater care.
• Three paragraphs can mean a half-hour's work.
• A tongue-out emoticon looks different when written with a cursive "p," while ;)ing looks much the same.
• When the interface is not "immediate" or "invisible," it becomes very obvious how writing technologies shape how we think through our thoughts. I would not write the last three words of that sentence by hand. It also becomes apparent that we learn to use even seemingly intuitive technologies in some ways. How do you position your fingers on a keyboard or when using an iPhone? How else might you move them through space? Do your arms ever move while you're typing?
• Ink is not necessarily easy to contain (What type of ink am I using? How am I containing it?).
• Ink is not necessarily easy to write with (How/why not?).
• Ink labeled "waterproof" is not necessarily waterproof... until it reaches your hands and magically transforms into a tattoo (How the hell does that work?).
• Writing legibly, in straight lines with consistent kerning, leading, and margins takes practice. We don't have to think about any of this when we're composing on the computer, it's done automatically, leaving us to focus on the words, spelling, etc. Without taking a design class or studying typography, most people probably aren't even familiar with the terms "kerning" and "leading," though they interact with these mechanics nearly every day. Maintaining consistent x-height is surprisingly challenging as well. Ironically, I'm describing the challenges of handwriting using typesetting terms.
• Having a desk with an incline would be useful, particularly one with enough room to "scroll" a page while writing.
• Having multiple weights/qualities of paper would seem normal for drafting and writing to certain audiences. Email doesn't allow this. One size fits all. The closest equivalent I can think of is a highly compressed pdf compared with a higher quality pdf.
• No matter how many features a program or a computer strips out, it will always be more complex, more distracting, than even a typewriter or single blank page with a pen on an otherwise empty desk. How many additional features does your computer have that serve no purpose while you write? How many writing features does your computer have that you've never used? (Am I overlooking the inherent complexities of writing and have become desensitized to the additional features I already use?)
• Is this how passionate Linux users feel when they strip away all unnecessary components in order to code without complexity and distraction?
• Do I need to learn the ways of Alex Klinkhamer to create a device that only allows the input of letters and outputs text? A digital typewriter? I'm eating my words and saying that I understand the appeal of this fictional device now. I want one. However, I'm not an Apple fan. It would need to be open source. And even then, an LCD screen is not the same as paper. Perhaps a hacked Kindle with a liquid paper display, connected to a keyboard and a device capable of processing text input and output and writing files. A unitasker-Linux-monstromachine.
• Understanding some of the mechanics of handwriting can make writing with chalk and dry erase markers much easier, which ideally makes the written words easier to read as well.
• Improving my own handwriting skills and techniques has been surprisingly easy. At least, subjectively, they appear to have improved. My cursive in particular has dramatically smoothed, and writing on a chalkboard by moving my arm--rather than attempting to form letters by moving my fingers--was noticeably easier on Tuesday. Whether it was actually easier for students to read my writing is hard to tell from my perspective.
• Relearning how to do something that you thought intimately conveyed a static personality/identity shows just how subjective our definitions can be. Although my handwriting still appears similar to the way it did before, something is tangibly different as well. Perhaps its because my personalities and identities have shifted too. What if we all tried relearning how to ride bikes? How to hold a pen or a pencil? If we examined what types of pens and pencils exist and how they affect our writing, our thinking, our formations of ourselves? Relearned how to hold a knife, what knives exist and why? How it affects what we cook and how it tastes, feels. Not just examining tools we specifically create with either, but things such as chairs, desks, beds, etc. Questioning the things we use on a daily basis but that most people never stop to think about. How form affects how technological identities form. Not to theorize about how technologies shape our lives and how we shape technologies, but to experience the shaping and reshaping processes, feeling the technologies in a new way after changing something about our interactions with them, and considering the mediating technologies within systems as well (this whole time I've been framing this argument/exploration relative to writing, thinking, speaking, and reading in a context of English, my own English at that, with the ability to write with my hands, read with my eyes, etc.). Considering why we often need others to help us see what we're doing, to help us understand the world from a different perspective. To help us understand that we cannot understand it all on our own, that we cannot disrespect other people's views because we never realize that our own handwriting is not objective even in its conveyance of who we think we are. To explore the world as a kid again, before everything was explained. Perhaps we explore to explain, but most of us aren't taught to explore the explanation, or to explore our methods of exploration?

In many ways, graduate courses already feel like beginning school all over again. I don't always understand why I'm being asked to do something, why I'm learning in a particular way. I'm (re)learning to pay attention to a different evluation/grading system, making mistakes and not understanding things, and wondering why anyone would ever go to school every day. I take naps, feel terrible, lost, confused, excited, and blisfully enthused. I'm relearning how to write on my own.

Explore. How do you write? This book sounds rather interesting now too. I feel I should also mention that I've been relearning to say, "You're welcome" instead of "Yup," or "No problem," whenever someone says "Thanks."