Writing with a Pen or Typing with a Keyboard

Of course I’m typing this journal with a keyboard now, but I like to write with my favorite fountain pen. I love the feeling of touching and sliding the pen point on paper.

I have a simple rule about whether I write with a pen or type with a keyboard. If things that I write can be reused or searched, I’ll type it and input it as data into a PC. If I use them just one time, I’ll write with a pen.

Especially when I develop an idea, I write it on a sheet of white paper with my favorite pen. I write and draw everything more freely with a pen than with a keyboard and a mouse, so I can develop the idea deeper and wider.

When I stayed in the U.S. for three months 20 years ago, I wrote many letters by pen to my wife (at that time she was a girl friend.) I think that I can express my feelings more when I write by hand.

I always bring a small notebook and when I get an idea to write on my weblogs, I write it down as soon as possible. When I write one of the ideas as a journal, I cross it out. ("I love suffering from insomnia!")

Sometimes in order to share the idea, I scan the document written with a pen into a PDF file and send it to my colleagues through e-mails.

On a business meeting I use a white board and write down what we talked about with a pen. And I take a photo of the white board and send it as a minute. I don't have to write the minute after the meeting with a keyboard.

But there is a great problem. My handwriting in both of Japanese and English is so messy that it's difficult (sometimes impossible) to read it. Even I myself couldn’t read it.

On the other hand, when I make a report, I type it on my PC. I can emend the report easily and of course anyone can read it.

Now I think that I’ll make the expression on the Internet a mixture of digital data and handwritings.