Writing with a fountain pen

Writing with a fountain pen, do you still do that? Continuing to write is very important, although nowadays we do practically everything on the computer. But why is it so important to keep writing?

Writing as a hobby

I never hated writing myself. There were times when I wrote so neatly that I was just sorry when we switched in school from writing papers by hand to writing everything on the computer. Now I’m talking about 1997.

When the computer was new and all I did on it was type a thesis.

Taking a type course

I didn’t follow any type of courses back then. So writing went a lot faster. When I was young I always kept diaries.

But the real love for began when I was seventeen. My sister went to live on her own and at that time we started writing to each other. Entire notebooks we kept.

When one of us went on vacation, we gave this notebook to each other and read the other’s stories. This made us feel connected even though we no longer lived in the same house. And these notebooks were about everything, really everything.

No mail but real mail

When I was twenty-three, I went backpacking in Australia for a year. The Internet was just coming up at that time and although I created an e-mail address halfway through that year, I still wrote and received a lot of letters at that time. Receiving the letters was quite an adventure. Because I traveled all over the country I had a ‘post restante’ address in Sydney. When I knew where in Australia I was going to stay longer, I would phone a postal code and then a few days later I could pick up the letters from home at the post office.

It was a joy to receive mail every time. But also writing home was nice. My parents kept all the letters I wrote. This one I got back after my trip and I still read regularly.

Just like my travel diary.

Dreaming away at all the adventures

Three times I made a long trip and all these times I kept a diary. It is not that I look at them weekly. But never give it away. Every now and then I love to read it and dream about all the adventures we had.

But it is also easy to look something up in it.

A year Australia, 6 months America and 7 months America and Canada, all described in books.

The digital world

And even though we now mainly live in a digital world, I still write a lot. Every day I try to write a piece in my Journal. Ika still write a lot of letters.

And although I also use fineliners, fountain pens remain my favorite.

Why write with a fountain pen?

With a fountain pen I write beautifully and neatly. I also see this in my children, who also write with fountain pens at school. Both have beautiful handwriting. And even though our lives are totally digital, we have to keep writing too.

Because how important is it that your handwriting remains legible. After all, we will always have to put something on paper. And honestly, there’s nothing quite like receiving real mail.

So I’ll just keep taking my shopping lists with me on a piece of paper and in my notebooks and Bullet Journal I’ll persistently and happily put everything down on paper as well.