Is the pen obsolete?

When was the last time you picked up pen and put it to paper? I did it recently and spent an hour writing down some thoughts. The pen glided over the page, leaving the surface scored and the leaf curved under the weight of my thoughts. It wasn’t that they were incredibly important, it was the importance of the exercise. When you put the pen to a surface and actually use your hand to make the words, you are using a different part of your brain. It is creative and analytical at the same time, especially if you work to make the words clear.

Some writers use a concept of “free writing” just putting down whatever words come to mind. It is like putting marks of color on a blank canvas. It is supposed to stimulate your creative brain and bring down any barriers you might have erected to your imagination. They tell you to start anywhere in a story. Create a description of a space or person, just write something down.

I tend to just write down any conflict I have going on in my head at the time. I must admit, right now I have a lot of conflict going on in my head. Sometimes capturing those thoughts in the computer works but the best stuff, that is in my ledger. I think it is important to keep our writing skills alive. My grandmother could and would write in Gregg Shorthand. Pages and pages of her thoughts written in her ledger and no one in the family could read it. I picked up a book on Gregg once but decided that if my grandmother had written it that way, she didn’t want anyone knowing what she said. I will honor that. I still may try learning Gregg one day, but since her ledgers are long gone; it will be for my own edification.

Is the pen obsolete? I don’t think so. It isn’t to me. Try writing for yourself. I heard of a teacher who is making students write essays in class by hand. It is a way to combat AI in the classroom. I applaud that educator for keeping alive a skill and combatting a modern cheat with a historical skill. We beat Germany by going back to a skill that many considered obsolete, remember the Navajo Windtalkers? Yep, our nation tried to ban the tribes from talking their language and it was the tribes that saved us.

Who knows what the pen will save us from in the future. Keep the faith, try writing.