Come Back, Bic

QWERTY killed the art of hand writing. A font was created, the unique penmanship dies.

The personality that oozes from the ink that lands on paper, every curve and stroke of the movement of fingers, aided by the palm and the wrist, have been mechanically deleted by the keyboard.

Pen pals have been replaced by instant messaging contacts.

And worse, words have been abbreviated by text messaging.

The speedball dip into a bottle of India Ink may sound absurd or unheard of in this generation. But there's a momentum in the dip, before a word meets the paper, aided by the speedball. It seems like writing then was a sacred ritual.

The quill becomes a cute prop seen in costume period films and HBO specials. It signifies the need to say the timeline of a story is dated, by using the outdated handwriting tool.

When was the last time you licked the edge of an envelope to seal that letter?

Love letters have become passe. Now, it's a collection of music shared in iPods and mp3 players, hoping the song's message done not by you, but a lyricist, expresses the love you feel for another.

The only need for handwriting nowadays is for signature of documents and checks. But even email messages have customized signature endings as well.

Then we begin to talk about the humble Mongol, too. Every word was manually erased by that bottom orange-colored thing. Now it is simply commanding backspace, or highlight a whole sentence, and press delete.

I remember a Mongol ballpoint pen that still had an eraser at its bottom. But my, how hard it was to erase ballpoint ink, it almost ruins the paper.

Or there was a nail polish act, called Snopake, or Liquid Eraser, to supersede what has been written.

In the name of efficiency and speed, the computer keyboard was born, a descendant of the Olympia typewriter. But what was sacrificed was that personal touch.

This Christmas, make an effort to use that Bic Ballpen again, and put some handwritten notes in the gift card, and not just as a signature. And extend beyond the generic "Merry Christmas" and individualize the message suited to each receiver.

In austere times, and post calamity season, the person behind the text matters. We're losing human contact because of technology. Leave a mark, at the very least, that you're not a computer bot. Use that hand. Grab a Bic, or a Kilometrico, or a Reynolds. Or if you're romantic and stylish enough, use a quill, a speedball, or a fountain pen.

And drop a note or two in your daily lives, be it at the office, or at home, personally hand worded by you. It makes a big difference in this automated, wired world.

Signed as first draft using
Eberhard Faber No.2,

Lilit.