Why It’s Time To Return To Handwriting
Being authentic is important.
I’ve recently returned to writing longhand each day as it’s given me the opportunity to slow down. Typing feels very work-like, whereas handwritten feels intimate.
This is from me, to you.
In the same way as love letters are or seem to have more resonance than sexting. Love letters are romantic. Handwritten notes, a modern day anachronism, are romantic.
Today what do we handwrite? Christmas cards, once a mammoth task started in November, is now in decline. We send virtual greetings via social media with the usual rider that instead of cards this year we’re donating to a charity. We probably don’t bother to donate, but we all breathe a sigh of relief that there are no cards we must respond to now. Birthday cards — the same — we turn to social media where Facebook even reminds us to say Happy Birthday to that person you met once at a conference where you were all told about the importance of networking, so added everyone to your list of ‘friends’, and now, aside from their vaguely racist posts that make you uncomfortable, you feel duty bound to wish them many happy returns of the day.
We no longer had milkmen to leave a note asking for an extra pint today, please. Most of us have gone dairy-free, or skip Weetabix and a cup of tea at home for a large soya latte and pain au chocolate in Caffe Costabucks.
No shopping lists either. We order our groceries online and receive them late at night after we’ve watched a nice period drama on the iPlayer. Or if we decide we want the thrill and crush of Waitrose (always Waitrose, darling, never Asda), then we use our smart phones with an app that reminds us what we’ve ventured outside for, and tracks how many steps we’ve taken and how many calories we’ve burned. Ideal for justifying that gorgeous cupcake and pot of Darjeeling necessary to revive us after our turn around the aisles amongst the Great Unwashed.
So why is it that pens, pencils, designer stationery, and warehouse style shops like Staples make a profit? Why are we still buying notebooks, pens, paper? We’re not writing anymore, are we?
But we’re in love with authenticity. We love ‘proper’ coffee, none of this instant rubbish for us. We’ll put up with a bitter burnt cup of Java that costs us £3.65 because it’s ‘real’ and we couldn’t possibly have the 80p Nescafe that our parents drank quite happily with milk and sugar.
We want to know which fields were grazed by our 60 day hung slab of best beef that we’ll half eat and give the remainder to our overfed black labrador — he deserves it, he’s had a delicate stomach ever since that unfortunate experience with the squirrel (grey, of course).
So we buy the beautiful paper from Smythson’s because it’s in Bond Street — a byword for conspicuous consumption. And of course SamCam is involved somehow, we’re not entirely sure how, but she wears such lovely shoes, and it can’t be easy being married to the Prime Minister.
Okay. Putting the brakes on here — my inner critic is now talking in Maggie Smith’s voice from Downton Abbey.
Let’s backtrack a little. We’re surrounded by a digital world, the virtual, apps, texts, and downloadables. So the opposite of that daily trial by technology is the authentic. Like the organic veg that we buy despite the higher cost and lack of flavour difference.
Authenticism is aspirational.
But that’s not all bad. Being authentic is also healthy. If it’s food then it’s surely better for us to cook something from scratch using real vegetables (regardless of whether they’re organic or not) instead of opting for the quick ready meal that contains the dreaded sugar, salt, and chemical preservatives. We know this.
So maybe switching off the mobile phone or laptop for fifteen minutes or half an hour while we drink a handcrafted latte, but more importantly, while we handwrite a letter, maybe that’s better for us. And maybe it’s more authentic and better for our loved ones to have that letter, or those diaries for when we’re no longer authentically here.
