The Art of Handwriting

     In a world of mobiles, computers, and Apple products, writing seems to be a lost art. I’m not talking about the words we write, but rather how we write them.
     The printed word may be one of man’s greatest achievements, but it is only an extension of the written word. When you look at the founding documents of this country (which I have had the privilege to gawk over), you can not only see the magnificence of their message, but also the care poured into the forming of each word.
     Words, in and of themselves, are the most powerful things we can use. They can be used to praise, forgive, condemn, they can lead armies and conquer the deepest recesses of our minds.
     But what also matters, and what few seem to take into account nowadays, is how we write them. As a student of my father, a nit-picky perfectionist who schooled me for almost two hours, six days a week, on just my handwriting; and of calligraphy, I have learned to value the practice of picking up a pen (or a quill, in my case) and recording my inner thoughts and muses. This entire rant was actually handwritten long before I decided to type it up and share it with the world, but I’m getting off topic.
     In these modern times we are taught to type, not write. Only a hundred years ago, it was considered some of great significance if you could write your own name. Today, we forget a lot of that, writing is just a mundane task that we must accomplish before we move on to grander things.
     Our handwriting is an extension of ourselves, it really does matter how we dot our i’s and cross our t’s. For those little actions speak a world of ourselves.
     Many of my peers in my classes all groan when our evil English teacher assigns us a handwritten essay. For me, it’s an opportunity to organize my thoughts on paper, and I enjoy it because of the extra care I can take in forming my words. But when it comes time to hand in the assignment my peers all hand in essays that are covered in chicken scratch and barely legible!
     What happened to a world where the handwritten letters were looked forward to, when mastering beautiful writing was celebrated? What happened to a world where we took pride in what our letters looked like? What happened to a world where handwriting actually mattered?
     I was thinking of this when I sat down to write my graduation letters (yes that’s right dear friends and mentors, you will soon have to suffer through my overly sentimental letters of appreciation). I take hours on one page measuring my spaces and lines, forming letters that express who I am. I want people to know that I appreciate them enough to sit down and take time to write out my thoughts, not just quickly type a letter that I can be done with in ten minutes.
    Okay, it’s probably time to get off of my soapbox, but hopefully some of you get the point (there was a point in there somewhere, right?) of this rant.