For several years, when I scribbled things down, I wrote them by hand in notebooks. I had my reasons. It has only been a few years since I began using my phone or computer files in earnest - perhaps three years at most. I had run blogs before that, but those posts were separate from the things I wrote by hand. They were mostly informational pieces meant to be shown to others, and in that sense they were less valuable as notebook material. Value is determined by use. Public, useful writing gains value when released, but for me those posts were more like things placed on a flea-market table. Yet even though saving work as word-processor files must have been possible before, I still held on to handwriting. The unexpected reason was that when I wrote with a keyboard, the writing speed was too fast.
Writing is made of two parallel acts. One is to observe the thought unfolding freely in my head. The other is to write down the sentence produced from that thought and look at it. More precisely, I distinguish a thought, observe it and turn it into a sentence, write that sentence, and then continue choosing the next thought while looking at what has already been written. These four acts keep checking one another as the writing proceeds. If the thought branches, the writing follows. If I decide to explain a sentence more finely, a new sentence explaining the previous one appears. It is a kind of real-time feedback. Like a bicycle chain, the front part goes backward, pulls the next front part forward, and the rear follows again, continuing without rest until the thought ends. In that state, I do not have to force myself to write. I only transcribe the flow of thought.
When I first tried to write on a computer, it did not work, and without knowing why I kept using notebooks. I like stationery, so if I found a thick notebook that looked friendly to fountain pens, I bought it. There was never a shortage. Then one day I needed to look through an old notebook and could not find the section I wanted. Since a paper archive cannot be searched, I had no choice but to read my hard-to-read handwriting from the beginning, letter by letter. I gave up before reading even half. That made me ask why I could not write on a computer, and I eventually found the answer by reading through old blog posts.
Those blog posts often said only what was needed and then suddenly stopped. People who came for information would not care how the writing ended. But the problem was that even in my reflective writing, the same abrupt cut appeared. I had never observed myself writing with that awareness, but once I did, the answer was simple. My writing speed had outrun my thinking speed. When writing by hand, my thoughts branch out freely, like multiple universes spreading and then joining our time to become one present at the moment the sentence is written. If I write too slowly, I fall into a blank daydream. But if I write faster than the thought can spread, I have to wait until the thought catches up with the sentence and passes it.
In my case, the former was possible, but the latter was not. I could drift away because writing was slow, but if writing became too fast, the instant I stopped writing, the thought needed for writing stopped with it. I could no longer continue. What I needed was not handwriting itself. I needed not to disturb thought, and by chance handwriting had the right speed.
That is when I began looking for mechanical keyboards - not just any mechanical keyboard, but one with round keys that imitated an old typewriter. The reason was simple. Keyboards with round keys have wide gaps, and because the keys are round, there is space above and below them, so the empty areas feel like actual holes. If a finger falls into one, it takes time to find its place again. The trick is to press slowly and firmly. That naturally slows writing down. It was a keyboard that was pretty and customized to my writing. At work I use an ordinary keyboard because I must type quickly. At home I use that one.
Writing on an e-ink reader is similar. E-ink screens are slow to update when letters appear, but when I write personally, I do not type that fast. I do not write quickly enough to feel the letters appear late. So it is not a problem - or rather, it is not a problem for me.
Because of this, my notebooks have become somewhat neglected. I set aside time to move old notebook writing into files, and it is terribly tedious. Sometimes I find a treasure and think, “Did I really have this thought?” But most of it is my own thinking, so the pattern is familiar. Still, if I am going to preserve it, I know files will be far more useful. I do not mean to throw away or shred the notebooks. I just need file versions as well.
Writing slowly and freely is possible only when thought is allowed to be free. A writing tool should be chosen above all by asking whether it lets thought move freely. Sadly, whether a tool suits that purpose can only be learned by trying it. Everyone is different. I solved it simply through speed control, but someone whose thoughts vanish the moment they put fingers on a keyboard may have no choice. Someone else may write better on a phone’s QWERTY keyboard. I understand all of that. If I hear of a Mozart-like genius who arranges the entire piece perfectly in the head and then types it rapidly while reading it internally, I can only say, “I suppose so.” Other people are other people; everything is possible for them. I only need to be faithful to my own thought and my own writing.
Korean original: 손글씨의 이유