The Lost Art of Writing

Would I had phrases that are not known, utterances that are strange, in a new language that has not been used, free from repetition, not an utterance which has grown stale, which men of old have spoken. Khakheperresenb, an ancient Egyptian scribe

One of the things that I never took into account when I started a blog was that I would, from time to time, not know what to write – at least, what to write of substance. I have, perhaps, a greater desire or need to write than some of my friends or associates, and on the whole, I think I write more than they do. It has led me to consider to what extent people write. In an earlier blog, I questioned the impact of schools no longer teaching cursive writing. However, I’m now considering a wider range and general question. If it can be assumed that people are writing less, the natural question is – what is the impact?

When I did my masters’ thesis research, one of the greatest resources was the amount of letters, journals, diaries or other writings that people did on a daily basis. Everyone wrote and not just short jots but rather long, epic letters that were meant to catch the receiver up on long periods of time apart. Letters were carefully considered and painfully written to ensure comprehension and clarity. Indeed, letters were the lifeblood that connected settlers or travelers or missionaries in strange lands with the comfort of home and hearth they left behind. Additionally, for those back “home,” it was the source of information about the strange and exotic, the foreign and distant.

In the absence of photography or film, the diary and the journal were vivid and explicit reminders of what was experienced, what was felt and what was endured. It is the reason such documents are so important to historians. This helped draw my concern and attention to the lack of writing today. It will have a huge impact on future historians, who must, somehow, cull meaning and substance from snippets of information hurtled down the information superhighway in the form of texts and emails. With the democratization of technology and the increasing trivialization of communication, what will be conveyed to future generations?

More importantly, what is happening now? What do people write? Why do they write? Does the reason for writing impact the ability to do so and the growth of one’s thinking and skills? If one writes nothing but financial reports and organizes pie charts their entire career, do imaginative and creative writing skills deteriorate? Does the individual decline in their ability to express opinion or to create an argument? Does the wealth of information and the flood of image and text make us increasingly incapable of processing, chalking it up to too much information? Does the lack of writing show the damaging impact of what the Dalai Lama called the “paralyzation of choice?”

These are the questions that occupy my mind. In my earlier blog, I suggested the lack of proper writing by hand was eating away at our ability to concentrate but that is only a small part of the equation. I don’t have complete answers but I have concerns. Because I don’t have the answers to these questions, I cannot pose solutions but I’m detecting trends that must be considered. Over the course of the next couple of months, I will attempt to address these questions and figure out possible solutions. Perhaps, the readers have thoughts on the subject.

On some level, these are the questions that should be studied and analyzed by education experts. If there is one group of people who should have the experience and context of thousands of years of history, and knowledge of how the “newest thing” is affecting the skills and abilities of human beings, it should be education specialists. As teachers, we must consider how we teach and the impact it has on our students. As adults, we should consider the lack of writing as potentially problematic. A Faustian bargain suggests that as we embrace one thing, we surrender another. When considering more expedient forms of relating information an ersatz to the act of writing, what is the impact of this Faustian bargain?