Some people call it Dysgraphia, but that is the more technical term. What am I talking about? The inability to write with the kind of fluidness and simplicity we had at school level. If children struggle to do it, it is labeled as a learning deterrent, a medical condition that can be come over. However, when middle-aged men like me cannot hand-write in a form that is always legible and without needing too much effort, it is not an underlying medical condition but perhaps a problem of having broken away from the habit for far too long.
I have encountered this many times, especially when jotting down notes after a conversation or recently, when writing an application to update my savings account information. Once I was through with writing [scribbling] through application, I took a moment to look at my masterpiece.
[Suggested Reading: ABout Digitization in India that is also reducing the need to write!]
I have encountered this many times, especially when jotting down notes after a conversation or recently, when writing an application to update my savings account information. Once I was through with writing [scribbling] through application, I took a moment to look at my masterpiece.
[Suggested Reading: ABout Digitization in India that is also reducing the need to write!]
These were the findings:
- There were so many writing styles that it would have done a note-scribbling serial murdered proud
- Spacing between lines had gone array so badly that if a train track had to be laid based on this outline, small communities would have been wiped out
- Leave along crossing the Ts an dotting the Is, every comma and special character, even the simplest of prepositions and pronouns with just one alphabet were in a SOS state
What did I learn from this?
- Don't downsize a skill just because you don't need it anymore – you might need to rediscover it at the most unexpected time
- My handwriting is not to be trusted. I am contemplating submitting at least 5 types of signatures at banks that warehouse my life’s savings
- Lastly, I have a habit of blogging a bit too much…if this weren’t true, you wouldn’t be reading this babble-mouth journal!
During school, I was counted among the handful of students who could write pages about the most reduntant topic, and my writing skills were rather good, including the ability to shape, engrave and architect each alphabet, in Hindi and English. College was perhaps where it started to go wrong and once a graduate, I guess I surrendered to the fact that modern workplaces are highly digital and your handwriting, a very basic form of personalization, is due to become extinct!
The serious side to this story is when people who have worked almost their entire life in job roles which required writing every day are no longer able to do the simplest things like sign their name - Parkinsons is one such neurological-muscular disorder. The plight cannot be understood by others, believing signing is not such a great deal but it is the loss of motor functions that creates the frustration - you have to witness it from a close, real angle to understand it.
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