When you write on paper, you don’t write to get published. When you write on the keyboard, most often, you do.
Perhaps I’m still a little bit old school. Even after the ownership of Mac, iPhone, and iPad, I still regularly consult my journal for pen and paper activities. Few things can beat the feeling of writing in one’s journal. There’s a sense of happiness, and perhaps wholeness to the experience.
Yes, you write a lot slower, but you give much more thought on what you want to write. Typing is a wonderful invention but sometimes the words inside your brain doesn’t have the time to incubate and stay there one second longer before being birthed to the world. This is both good news and bad news. Good news is you really are putting down your first reaction to everything. Bad news is of the same reason.
The act of stroking a pen to paper to create letter by letter give the words in your head just enough time to stay a little bit longer, and at times, they become more meaningful. They become more thoughtful. There is also a considerable amount of time taken to write traditionally, and this process builds up one’s character.
Not to mention the freedom of jolting down words, phrases on the edge of the paper, underlining, using CAPS, or circling. Putting emphasis here or there, adding a personal touch whenever required because your words are not bound to Helvetica font 9-sized format.
And the pages of your journal has witnessed more honesty than hundreds of pages of your blog. Because there, you write for yourself. Here, when the compulsion takes over, you write for people, or worse, for people to like you, or even for praise itself.
Photo by erink_photography
