The Fountain Pen: Art of Writing

My friend Tanjot asked about fountain pens the other day. I hadn't written with mine in a long time. I remember doing a lot of research before buying mine. I missed the fancy Pelikan (German) pen my father had gotten me when i was in 5th grade, and had just begun cursive or as we called it "joint-handwriting". The letters were all joined, thus the name, we never knew of cursive until moving here.

Tanjot posted a picture of his handwriting with his new-old pen. It was old because it was his grandfathers, how romantic is that! Most people use micro-tip, or ball point pens, so it was awesome to see another fountain pen fanatic, of course the story behind his pen is amazing.

My current fountain pen has no amazing story. The amazing pens I did have are all long gone, ie. the Parker pen which my dad let me have, after he had it since he was at Case, the Pelikan pen, and many others. By 12th grade I had over 10 amazing fountain pens. Anyway, enough mourning  over the loss of my material obsession, now I have one Sheaffer fountain pen. It writes smooth. Anyway I had filled it up a few days ago for no apparent reason, and today I began to write with it, so I could post it on Facebook, like Tanjot had, and realized it was tough. 

It had been a year since I had last written with it. My handwriting was all over the place. I really had to focus. I was having a hard time flowing with the ink, I was hesitating before my 'L's. I wanted to get this post done, so I focused and ended up writing three pages of  a quote from Buddha. That's when it struck me.

This is art. This is meditation. Why was writing so tough? Why was I hesitating on certain words? It was amazing to introspect, and such a similar process to meditation. I found out things about myself, and worked through it until my 'L's were smoother. I learned to "let go" in a way, and go with the flow.

There is a value in arts and culture. It is what we fight for. Art and culture is what we cultivate within when we have peace, freedom and time. Which is all the time, and a state of mind. I know there's a push to get cursive writing out of school, but it's such a skill, a learning in patience, introspection, control, and going with the flow (being present). Why would we take away this amazing experience from our children, just because lost our sight of creativity, art, and began valuing/ focusing on other things?

As much as we like the big hullabaloo of a big success, wealth and riches, we always realize that the joys are in family, friends and the little things in life. We get sucked in, and sometimes we're sucked into a tornado of life, that we forget the things that matter. Stop and smell the roses, write with a fountain pen, take some time to meditate, go for a walk in the park, life's too short to miss these things.


Breathe