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Take out a pen, start writing.
Mar. 5th, 2018 05:57 pmThe best way I've found to write anything at all is to stop trying to write everything at once, so here I am.
The writing I want to write about is the writing I've been writing lately, albeit not in this particular venue. Rather, the inscriptions have been inscribed in a book; one made of paper, thread and probably some glue. In specific, a notebook with lovely paper that is just smooth enough to allow the ink to flow, and rough enough to know that the ink is indelibly marking a surface that's meant to be marked.
This journal in which I journal sits upon a desk made of the finest IKEAlite that money can buy. The lighting is directed indirectly, multiply-sourced, diode-emitted, and as pleasing as one could imagine for the task of putting pen to paper in the pursuit of conveying words to a medium where they can't move around as much.
Setting the scene above, I can tell you the tale of what brought me to care about any of the things in that brobdingnagian boulliabaise of a tableau.
Enter the fountain pen. The pen, for purposes of this discussion is a Pilot Metropolitan in Classic Black, with a fine point nib. You'll find yourself with change out of a twenty US Dollar banknote, were you to purchase a new one.
A bit of background: Charitably speaking, I have a broad assortment of inexpensive ball-point pens. If one were less charitable, one could reasonably note that after throwing out roughly seventy no-longer-working and/or empty and/or exploded pens, the only accurate phrase would be "a good start."
More background: My handwriting is neat, stylized, and compact. Anything broader than a fine-point pen is certain to cause frustration. To complicate things, physics conspires against me in a most obvious way, inasmuch that a science can conspire. The finer the point on the paper, the more friction there will be against the surface, as a ball-point pen requires a small amount of bearing down in order to move the bearing. The more downward pressure, the more fatigue, the less written. By contrast, a fountain pen releases ink by way of pressure on the nib, of which the weight of the pen itself typically suffices.
Ergo, when one has handwriting that does not suffer insufficient writing utensils, it's somewhat surprising that I never ventured into the realm of fountain pens previously. One possible explanation is that your humble narrator was put off by the pen snobbery that went hand-in-hand with the pen geekery, much in the way that it's possible to look askance at someone who insists on calling their wristwatch a "timepiece". Self-knowledge dictates that my purchase of a fountain pen costing multiple hectadollars would only lead to regret, coniciding with the first time I uttered a question involving the words "my other pants." This may shed a small amount of light on how I assembled a veritable dragon's hoard of plastic, ink, and tiny tungsten ball bearings.
With all that written, I now write more. I have filled notebooks at home, and I have found a small and significant delight in bringing a notebook into meetings at my workplace. I often talk about "increasing the resolution of my world"; being disciplined enough to learn a discipline enough to see some part of the world on a finer scale, where the invisible parts are not so visible to be obtrusive, but laid plain enough to be seen at all. I can safely say that in the past approximately seven months I have acquired a much greater appreciation for paper, ink, and the quiet capillary action of a fountain pen.
The writing I want to write about is the writing I've been writing lately, albeit not in this particular venue. Rather, the inscriptions have been inscribed in a book; one made of paper, thread and probably some glue. In specific, a notebook with lovely paper that is just smooth enough to allow the ink to flow, and rough enough to know that the ink is indelibly marking a surface that's meant to be marked.
This journal in which I journal sits upon a desk made of the finest IKEAlite that money can buy. The lighting is directed indirectly, multiply-sourced, diode-emitted, and as pleasing as one could imagine for the task of putting pen to paper in the pursuit of conveying words to a medium where they can't move around as much.
Setting the scene above, I can tell you the tale of what brought me to care about any of the things in that brobdingnagian boulliabaise of a tableau.
Enter the fountain pen. The pen, for purposes of this discussion is a Pilot Metropolitan in Classic Black, with a fine point nib. You'll find yourself with change out of a twenty US Dollar banknote, were you to purchase a new one.
A bit of background: Charitably speaking, I have a broad assortment of inexpensive ball-point pens. If one were less charitable, one could reasonably note that after throwing out roughly seventy no-longer-working and/or empty and/or exploded pens, the only accurate phrase would be "a good start."
More background: My handwriting is neat, stylized, and compact. Anything broader than a fine-point pen is certain to cause frustration. To complicate things, physics conspires against me in a most obvious way, inasmuch that a science can conspire. The finer the point on the paper, the more friction there will be against the surface, as a ball-point pen requires a small amount of bearing down in order to move the bearing. The more downward pressure, the more fatigue, the less written. By contrast, a fountain pen releases ink by way of pressure on the nib, of which the weight of the pen itself typically suffices.
Ergo, when one has handwriting that does not suffer insufficient writing utensils, it's somewhat surprising that I never ventured into the realm of fountain pens previously. One possible explanation is that your humble narrator was put off by the pen snobbery that went hand-in-hand with the pen geekery, much in the way that it's possible to look askance at someone who insists on calling their wristwatch a "timepiece". Self-knowledge dictates that my purchase of a fountain pen costing multiple hectadollars would only lead to regret, coniciding with the first time I uttered a question involving the words "my other pants." This may shed a small amount of light on how I assembled a veritable dragon's hoard of plastic, ink, and tiny tungsten ball bearings.
With all that written, I now write more. I have filled notebooks at home, and I have found a small and significant delight in bringing a notebook into meetings at my workplace. I often talk about "increasing the resolution of my world"; being disciplined enough to learn a discipline enough to see some part of the world on a finer scale, where the invisible parts are not so visible to be obtrusive, but laid plain enough to be seen at all. I can safely say that in the past approximately seven months I have acquired a much greater appreciation for paper, ink, and the quiet capillary action of a fountain pen.
