Of course, like every single theme of conversation and opinion, cursive writing is of different importance to different people. For some, the fact that nowadays there is less handwriting and more typing, is a good sign because it has a meaning of technology evolving. My opinion, however, is quite the opposite. Yes, it might mean that technology is rather taking positive steps of development, but is this actually a positive fact? As I have written in a previous post, technology is becoming more and more of an addiction to the majority of our society. This is a major reason for the lack of development in the, no doubt, beautiful cursive handwriting.
Nowadays people who communicate from a distance do it electronically through social media, e.g. Skype, Facebook, e-mail, text messaging, etc. Yes, it is easier that sending direct mail and waiting for days for it to arrive, but the magic of knowing that your friend/ mother/ father/ boyfriend/ girlfriend/ son/ daughter, etc, is gone. Handwriting is one of a kind. Every single person on the planet has their own unique handwriting, even if it is not particularly cursive, there is not one duplicated type of handwriting, as opposed to standard typing which is the same and has no individuality whatsoever. Knowing that that significant other has touched the letter, handwritten it, and not jus typed it, that gives you the feeling of closeness. It gives you a feeling of a warm connection with them. It is personal. This feeling is now mostly gone and not many people realize it. Because of type, generations are gradually losing the ability of writing in cursive.
‘The eyes are the window of the soul’. Well, I can say a similar thing about handwriting. It is the window of the emotions. Cursive writing expresses them in a way that obviously cannot be compared to type. You can almost tell of a person’s feelings, their state of mind, or even their character from when the were writing something.
Handwritten letter
To answer the question ‘is the ability to write in cursive today useful?’ – yes, for a number of reasons, it is. Learning to write in cursive develops the accuracy and precision of the hand. Let’s face it, cursive handwriting is, to my personal opinion, a kind of an art form. Let’s move on to Calligraphy. The appreciation of cursive handwriting has led to the appearance and development of this elegant and beautiful type of art. It can be from simple elegant and creative titles and illustrations, to fascinating urban calligraphy, to graffiti. Personally I admire all kinds of graffiti – characters, pictures, objects, etc. But to keep it in the topic, I will not get carried away and I will stick to talking about calligraphic graffiti, or, as some call it, calligraphiti. To many, street art is vandalism, but to others, myself included, it is a beautiful and important art form. I think it makes our world a more beautiful, colorful, unique place.
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