Writing in Cursive

I live across from a small nature preserve full of tall old trees and a creek hidden somewhere between them. From my balcony I can see the whole trunks of the trees sway a little when gusts of wind come by, and the tops of the trees dance rhythmically to the wind that flows through. Sometimes the winds whip around the walls of where I live too making sharp whistling noises, and between me and the trees each blade of grass moves within the flow of the earth. Perhaps the wind is a writer, and it weaves like cursive letters and creates its story into the contours of each tree and each person it touches, all unique, telling a long story with each moment that we witness this moving force.

Cursive is a style of writing that I have not used in many years. Some time ago the public education system in the United States decided to stop teaching cursive to the children or to teach it only very minimally. It’s become outdated, they said, today is an era of information and technology. In this day in age it would be a waste to spend time teaching kids how to write the English language in a style that is no longer used in modern society. It is better to focus on practicality and other skills that are applicable to the workforce.

Perhaps they are right. It is true that cursive is no longer a skill that is needed in the world today, unless you are in a very niche profession it is very unlikely that you will be required to ever write a sentence in cursive all your life. From a practical standpoint it’s hard to argue that students should spend hours on it, and somewhat ironically the penmanship style of cursive was originally invented as a way to write faster and more efficiently. Yet while I can’t claim to write in cursive regularly myself (I probably could not write the fully alphabet in cursive correctly anymore), I can’t help but think that something is being lost by this removal of cursive from the education system. The cursive style of writing carries with it a beauty within its calligraphy. It makes information into art, thoughts into aesthetics.

I remember having some assignments back in school in which I had to write entire essays in cursive. It was challenging to do so but I also remember enjoying it, because there was a bit of art to it. Sitting with a paper and pencil drawing out the curves of each letter, creating the connections and letting a piece of creativity flow from within. I’d make some sentences a little wider than others, and some a bit sharper. I know intuitively even as a child that I was putting a part of myself into these sentences, and not just in what I was saying but also in the way it was being constructed. Imprints of my psychological nature were being expressed within language and through art at the same time. It created a sense of ownership with my writing and the conveyance of my thoughts.

And now we just type in letters on a keyboard, or a phone, or even just ask ChatGPT to do it for us. I’m no luddite, but part of me wonders if the efficiency that we’ve gained comes at a cost.

I have some old letters that my great grandfather wrote to his lover and future wife back in the 1890s. The sentences were expressive and resembled a kind of classical art, and such art resembles organic objects of beauty. It’s hard to imagine that our souls could be as engaged in writing a heart felt letter over a text message as one might be penning a letter in cursive. When writing by hand at times the shapes and angles reflect the feelings of the writing much better than an emoji ever could.

Compare this to writing done on a computer. Every letter is exactly the same, a standardized utilitarian backdrop used to write out our thoughts. It’s frowned upon to use different fonts while writing, and it is considered good form to keep everything uniform. It makes sense, too. It is the utilitarian answer to the complexities and confusions that might come from individualization of paper writing. And especially today, people’s handwriting is so bad that you could scarcely understand what people are trying to say if we were all exchanging paper everywhere.

A solution is a solution, and efficiency is efficiency. Yet, when I look out over the trees near my house, what draws my eyes to linger is nothing utilitarian or efficient, but something I draw from the outside in that makes me feel human. When I quiet my mind among places of natural beauty, I feel a continuity between a past long gone which flows through my veins and a harmony with something far greater than the civilization I live in.

It seems that it may not be coincidental that the loss of cursive coincided with the depopularization of classical art, literature, and architecture. Today, the art world seems to value performative spectacle over careful representations of beauty. Postmodern literature values a crash, gritty realism over abstract romanticism. Big strip malls and neon signs have replaced the classical buildings and etchings in stones seem in old downtowns, and large towers of glass now conceal the artistic design of older architectural structures.

I’m not saying it’s bad. All efficiency has purpose, but it is worthwhile to ask ourselves this question and whether or not it’s really worthwhile. Uniformity creates simplicity, while individuality creates complexity.

Despite the machine like nature we often create society to function as, we are all still humans and inherently social creatures of emotions. And perhaps on some level the idea behind all of this efficiency is to expedite the path towards meaningful connections with others. Because, despite all of the efficiency and uniformity, this sameness will never do away with the individualism of people around us. This is a blessing. We all have unique shades to our personality, and are all on a special journey through life that is all of our own. People are always changing in subtle ways, stretching and contracting aspects of self in reaction to the every moving nature of life. The valves of our voices are all a little different, and when we laugh with one another our senses of humor are interwoven within frameworks that are all our own. This individuality is anything but efficient, it is what makes relationships difficult, but it is also what makes it all worthwhile. We fall in love with differences, because much in the same way as the cursive winds circle the trees, so does the cursive of our hearts wind through relationships and imprints a story in our soul.