Writing (again?)

Since writ­ing is prob­a­bly the activ­ity I do most fre­quently, after read­ing and sleep­ing, it is nat­ural that I spend a fair amount of time think­ing about it. Yes­ter­day morn­ing I began to pon­der the phys­i­cal act of writ­ing, or, the dif­fer­ence between writ­ing by hand and writ­ing on the com­puter. I think it’s safe to assume that there is a dif­fer­ence in the part of the brain used for these two dif­fer­ent, yet sim­i­lar, activites. For one, writ­ing by hand requires con­cen­tra­tion. When I take pen to paper, I can only do that one thing, whereas while typ­ing I can lis­ten to music, watch a youtube video and check my bank bal­ance. Writ­ing by hand also requires the use of hand and arm mus­cles that increas­ingly fall into dis­use. Since I hardly ever write by hand, I begin to get cramps after writ­ing really very lit­tle. The phys­i­cal, focussed, sometimes-painful nature of writ­ing by hand also seems to have the power to clear my mind of all the dust that bounces around in it. If de-technologizing helps me focus, maybe I could gain more clar­ity by buy­ing an inkwell?