The magic of cursive

As a baby-boomer I consider myself lucky as I lived a much interesting life than younger generations. 

We grew up in a sparsely populated world where mysteries were abundant. We did not have material richness of today’s world but the world was richer in other ways. 

The world of an adolescent boomer was more real. We had to acquire skills and physically navigate obstacles without the help of a smartphone or Internet. 

We whistled to call our friends. We learned about human nature, building alliances and dealing with hostilities on streets. Everything happened under our watch, with our gaze fixed on the world, not on a dim white screen. 

We learned to manually calculate the square root of a number. We had to read books, and we had to write in cursive using our hands. 

When writing we had to be mindful as we often didn’t have a second chance for corrections. There was no clipboard, no cut, no copy and no paste. We wrote our home-works, passport applications and love letters in cursive, and often in one go. 

We were super-humans without realising. 

There is something meditative about dexterity. Your mind controls a mechanical pen or a pencil, you give birth to each letter one by one in a style unique to you, your words flow like a canoe on a river, splashing ripples. In the end your creation is unique and timeless, intimately attached to your mind. 

I have recently written an essay on Photography in cursive. It was fulfilling to remember how special we are.