Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

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Writing by hand

Writing with a pen is now something of a rarity, as technology increasingly becomes an essential part of our daily lives. For most of us, working involves using a computer for much of the day, phoning, texting, and when we're not in the office to receive emails, they arrive on our Blackberry. If we do use a pen and paper, it's just to jot the odd note down to remind us later and writing pads are a collection of random jottings.

When was the last time you wrote a letter with pen and ink? For me, it's quite a while ago, yet if asked, I would say that I'm quite a fan of traditional pens....and particularly the fountain pen. But even though I have an ink well (yes, a real glass ink well with a cork stopper) on my desk, and also a fine fountain pen, I rarely use it other than to jot a note. The keyboard that beams infrared signals to my computer of my chosen letters and words, rules the day. It's just so quick and efficient, but so, so, so impersonal.

With this in mind, and being a traditional chap with a love of natural materials, it is now my personal wish, to write more hand written letters (extending beyond a couple of sentences and may even stretch to a couple of pages) to my friends, my father and others about whom I care.

When did you last receive a hand written letter? And did you think how quaintly old fashioned it was, or were you touched by the personal nature of the communication? Here in our hand is a neatly folded piece of fine writing paper with the marks of a hand, displaying character, wisdom, personality, humour, love and most of all,....authored by someone with sufficient interest in us as a person and with the consideration to personally take the time and execute a message in the form of time-taking handwriting. Don't you just love it?

Yes writing by hand does take time, it takes consideration and requires us to give more of ourselves. We expose our inner self, we have to patiently form the letters to ensure legibility, and they carry with them a personal touch that is lost to the computer. There is something reassuringly warm, comforting and personal about a hand written letter. We hold it in our hand rather than viewing it on screen, we unfold it, spread it, we read the lines, we also read between the lines, the squiggles, marks of human contact, the inaccuracies that display personal idiosyncrasies, the splodges, and corrections, the feel of crisp paper.....and once read we fold it and place it to one side to be viewed again later. We have in our hand a closer connection with the author than can be achieved by any email, text or computer printed letter. This is the real human touch. This is my father, my mother's hand, my brother, sister or friend's hand. It is the hand that stroked the back of my neck when I was younger, the hand that held mine as we skipped along the promenade, the hand that so beautifully plays the piano, tethers the horses, bakes cakes, swings that golf club, the hand that grooms the author, the hand that displays their own character lines, their recognisable shape, their long and slender fingers, the fingers that touched my lips when suggesting we keep quiet about our secret, and here I view the product of the same hand in the form of handwriting. THANK YOU. I feel a real connection with this person.

Today I shall write a letter, a proper letter on quality paper with my fountain pen and wet ink that needs time to dry. I shall fold it carefully, write an envelope, and take it personally to the postbox. I shall give a little more of myself to the person I love and to whom I take pleasure in giving my time to produce a simple handwritten letter.

Posted by Noël on March 29, 2007 9:45 AM | Permalink