Am I Really Just a Typist?

I am in one of my philosophical moods.

A friend sent me an instant message after reading my blog, commenting that I can write quite darn well. Do I really? I was suddenly very full of myself and contemplated on the idea of becoming a writer for good and embarking on long treacherous journeys to feed my mind.

Ok, seriously, that was not what I thought about.

I was thinking about the years in school when I truly did write real stuff. Not frivolous feel-good nonsense or goofy humor like what you see on this page, but scholarly essays on serious issues from ethics to world affairs. And write, I would, with a pen.

As a student, my pencil case was the most important thing I carried everywhere. In fact, my supply of stationery was so substantial that I was coined 'The Stationery Shop' by my classmates who always borrowed my Pilot pens.

Another must-have item in my school bag was my standard 2-hole, A4-size foolscap paper. In fact, I liked my paper so much that one of my favorite pastimes was selecting foolscap at Popular Bookshop.

I am not sure if I truly loved to write at that time, or if I did it because I had to. But writing had never been a chore to me. My ideas would flow like a stream and I was always in the library looking up references to quote. I could draft an outline and complete an essay without much effort. The only extra work I had to do was to rewrite the essay neatly on fresh paper as the original copy, with its ink blots and scribblings, would be completely illegible to anyone but myself.

Then came the time when I went on to college in the US. I wasn't so fond of the 3-hole, 8 ½" x 11" yellow filmsy paper that was the standard college issue, and I really could not get used to the fact that my American college counterparts were still using pencil to write. What irked me most was the little eraser tip that kept breaking off. I thought I only had to deal with that in elementary school. So I gave up and starting using my Mac to print my essays. It was definitely more 'adult' and more professional to turn in a paper that is double-spaced, using 12-pt Times New Roman font and 1-inch margins. From that day on, I never looked back. I became a typist.

I touched my keyboard more than I held my pen. Soon, I realized that I could not even organize my thoughts unless I was typing them onto my screen. My handwriting degenerates into a miserable scrawl that I cannot bear to look at. Sometimes I even think correctly-spelled handwritten words are spelt wrongly because they look strange and different from type.

If you ask me, I cannot remember when was the last time I bought a pen. Or foolscap. I write on Post-Its more than on anything else. Pens are now used only for jotting phone numbers and short messages.

It is really quite sad that I do not really 'write' anymore. And I do not want to think of the consequences of a crashed hard-drive or whatever it is that might delete this blog permamently from the internet. Will I then become an empty person with no legacy to her name, no rights to her works? Is this the start of the demise of what we know as writing instrument?

How I wish I can become a writer again. A writer who pens her thoughts, not one who types them.