Handwritten Letters

a reply to: Bhadhidar

Who talks, or even thinks!, like that anymore, right?

Well, it's funny you would ask that!! In one of the letters I just got done writing, about a pencil, I wrote the following...

There’s a simplicity in a wooden pencil and a clean sheet of paper; all the complexities of the world start there. As a piece of mind, it’s reassuring to know all the red and green lights, all the apps, all the computers, systems, smart phones and Internets of things, all the complications of life begin and end, as they always have, the very moment that pencil lead touches the paper. And so it goes, full circle, right back from the sheet of paper, through that cedar pencil, into the hand and up to the mind of the person where it all began, the mind of the person where the next idea is born.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I have had several patients that where having problems dealing with stress that complained that they either didn't like the medications they were prescribed or couldn't afford them.

I asked them if they were willing to try something a little different. I gave them a pencil. I asked them to carry the pencil with them at all times, and when they were feeling at odds with themselves, or the world, to take out the pencil and to draw or write whatever they saw or came to mind. A piece of paper or something to write on is usually easily available, but I suggested keeping a few post-its, in the pocket of purse for this occasion.

It is impossible to be depressed if you are concentrating on drawing or writing something. It is not a magic cure and is only a temporary fix, but it works. I have had patient's bring me beautiful pictures they have drawn along with insightful statements and poems they have done, when penciling away the stress. It is interesting how much difference a pencil and simple piece of paper can make.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Sadly many country's are no longer even teaching there children Cursive in school as computer literacy has taken priority, in time this will mean that handwritten letters will become like a foreign language to these kid's as they grow increasingly less literate.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Looks like kindred spirits will be sharing an Autumn evening on the porch of the Old Philosopher’s Home!


I love wooden pencils! The contrivance of their construction (as a kid I marveled at the mystery of how the lead got into the very center of the wood body), their scent, the precision of lead sharpened to needle-like fineness.

Throughout elementary school I would keep three wooden pencils in a case in my book bag: a needle sharp one for arithmetic (because numbers are precise), a slightly worn down point for general use, and a “special” pencil whose point had been shaped and smoothed in such a way that it would quickly and nearly as possible, fill in the little “answer bubble” on standardized tests with no more that three strokes required.

And although pen and ink can create beautiful drawings, I always found that the infinite shadings possible with a good pencil much more conducive to flights of creativity.

a reply to: Bhadhidar

Fountain Pen's, but somewhere between I once had a very expensive waterman that felt like a pencil but wrote like a fountain pen (without the drip's), unfortunately it succumbed to a pick pocket which gutted me at the time as it had been a gift from my mother.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Sorry. Accidental post.

I seem to shock everyone who looks at my hand writing , Especially when i tell them i am dyslexic , even my sister cannot get her head around how i can write such old fashioned cursive script and be dyslexic , But boy do i hate writing it used to take me 5 goes back in the day with all the mistakes

Fountain pens have been mentioned. But what do you mean by "fountain pen"?
When I was at school, a fountain pen had an internal bladder to hold the ink. Use of a lever would squeeze out the air; the pen would be dipped into an inkwell previously filled with ink, or dipped straight into a bottle of ink, and the reversal of the lever would fill the pen. Apart from the accidental spills, which made blotting-paper an essential tool, there were opportunities for non-accidental mischief with ink or water.

The later development was that the bladder was replaced by the "cartridge" of ink, sold in packets of four, as far as I recall. I wrote my college essays with cartridge pens, since ballpoints had not yet become reliable.

Out of curiosity, a couple of years back, I looked at the shelves of the local stationer to see if they still sold fountain pens. At first sight, they did. Then I looked closer, and the "fountain pens" turned out to be what I would have called cartridge pens. And of course the little bottles of ink had disappeared from the shelves altogether. So it seems to me that the genuine fountain pen, by the original definition, has dropped out of use.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I tried to post a picture but my upload doesn't work.

I have quill pens, fountain pens, and pens that use cartridges, along with refillable cartridges, which technically makes them true fountain pens. I even have a set of pens with glass nibs.

I love writing with all of them, but right now my Mountblanc has the perfect balance and weight, it is the most enjoyable for me to write with at this time, when I am writing seriously.

Your title caught me off guard, and made my stomach sink a little.

I knew it had been far too long, and that I probably never wrote one again.
Or will I?.. 🤔

I am an huge admirer of calligraphy, It never ceases to impresses me.

Then you wrote such a lovely post, I think I've fallen in love 😍

🌟 🚩

Technology. I love my Mont Blanc - roller ball. I used to love my Cross pens, pencils, ballpoints, felt tips & roller balls. But I haven't used a fountain or cartridge pen in years, mostly because of traveling constantly like 3 flights a week. Too much failure potential.

Still use cursive, but I had mediocre to fair penmanship. Still do.

Fortunately, mechanical pencils for drawing soon ascended the hierarchy to coding - back when you had to print in tiny boxes on legal sized paper (landscape) so keypunchers could render your code into punched cards for the computer. Suffice to say,I learned to keypunch. You can't fix punched card mistakes.

ganjoa

a reply to: DISRAELI

Absolutely not! I don't own a single cartridge pen, and that is exactly what they are called.

All of my pens are true fountain pens with internal ink reservoirs. Some are removable so I could put a cartridge in one, but I don't. I only used bottled ink to charge my pens, and nice quality ink to boot. And, that's one of the major drawbacks of cartridge pens, the limitation of ink selection.

When I first started collecting actual pens (and not drafting inking tools), I had cartridge pens, but I haven't used a cartridge pen in probably 20 years.

There are lots of places on-line where you can get true fountain pens. There are even some pretty nice pen shops in most larger cities.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You can also find really nice pens of all styles from dip, fountain, felt, etc in art supply stores. They also have nice selections of inks.

Like Night Star, I too had pen pals growing up. MANY pen pals. I had aimed to have one in every country (came damn close...) Though, some countries, I had several. The Brazilian kids were pretty freakn' cool kids.
I still keep in touch with my Hawaiian and Dutch pen pals, they're technically among my oldest friends Not via "snail mail" anymore, though emails.

Heh, we were ahead of the curve in the 90's, we coined the turn "FB" before Fakebook existed. It was a small, mini-book passed between pen pals, with a set number of empty pages to be filled by one person at a time (usually 12-18) if they were looking for a new pen pal. If not, they passed it along to the next person they wrote to. "FB" stood for "Friendship Book/Booklet". When it was filled, the last person to write in it had the task of sending it back to the maker.

As to cursive, I don't bother with it anymore. I make my kids practice it, but I seldom run across any examples IRL that warrant knowing it, aside from maybe branding. I think we can officially declare if having fallen out of functional use now.
My cursive is quite sloppy anymore, I'm very out of practice. About 20 years out of practice. I defaulted to a hybrid print/lazy cursive for speediness purposes a very long time ago, and it's legible across the board, thus I see no reason to use anything else.

Logically speaking, one standard script should be more than sufficient, and if you were to compare my cursive with my grandmother's, you might as well be reading hers as Ancient Greek. It's damn near unintelligible because that particular style (not Palmer, something more unnecessarily ornate) hasn't been used in ages. It makes going through her genealogy research effing HARD, I can hardly decipher it, and often pass it around to others, "Can you read this?? TF does this say?? Is this a T or a P? Is this an X? M? N? W? V?"

Just because something's pretty doesn't really make it functional. That just makes it decorative at best. Clarity matters more, IMO, and the old ornate scripts aren't up to snuff for that task.

originally posted by: Lysergic
Note writing robots.

Note writing robots, you say?



I think someone could write an app that scans your hand writing and then turns typed text into a facsimile of your own handwriting, then we can just use word to send hand written letters.

I could be on to something there...

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Glad to hear it. I went into W.H. Smith, which is the standard High Street stationer in England, but I suppose companies in a bigger market are more willing to cater for minority tastes.
"In my young day" (as my father used to say) the brand of ink that everybody used was "Stephens".

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Glad to hear it. I went into W.H. Smith, which is the standard High Street stationer in England, but I suppose companies in a bigger market are more willing to cater for minority tastes.
"In my young day" (as my father used to say) the brand of ink that everybody used was "Stephens".

Why is everything steve... I mean.. it's uncanny.

I only reply because it's been as if the universe is throwing steve memes and coincidences at me for the last few years.

... I used to write all the time, but sadly for me, the constant use of a keyboard has rendered my hand writing of that of a doctor. Which isn't far off how it used to be when I was younger, but more rough.. I have the most atrocious handwriting. I actually prefer using a keyboard now, as it allows me to not look like I'd written something in a storm using an octopus for ink and seaweed as parchment.

But I agree with FCD.. the art of hand writing is becoming something lost on the younger folk. More so, the ability to craft words. Saddens me that a language so rich in history and with such potential to inspire mindful worlds, is now bbl hbu?

ahh well, swings and roundabouts.. from an illiterate world came the printing press and the art of expression to go with it... in a few hundred years, after the apocalypse, someone will actually start a new fad.. writing, like in the olden days.

originally posted by: LABTECH767
I once had a very expensive waterman that felt like a pencil but wrote like a fountain pen (without the drip's)

I went looking for mine the day before yesterday. Managed to find the refills I had collected, but not the pen. Colored it gone sometime yesterday morning. TBH ... there's no one left in my life worth writing a letter to.

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
I seem to shock everyone who looks at my hand writing , Especially when i tell them i am dyslexic , even my sister cannot get her head around how i can write such old fashioned cursive script and be dyslexic , But boy do i hate writing it used to take
me 5 goes back in the day with all the mistakes

Dyslexia is a strange thing, they used to call it letter blindness but in fact while dyslexic's suffer from difficulty with word's they are often slightly more intelligent than other folk's and often compensate with other talent's.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think too many are afraid of communication without an edit button to use more than just a thumb perhaps.

I have the most important letters of my life to write, and it's a one time only affair.

Yikes!