First thoughts::
I was excited that my first homework assignment at my new school was to write three paragraphs in crayon. All my writing is mostly on my computer. I rarely even use a notebook anymore. So I thought that I had to write a draft of the assignment first before I write it with the crayon. I also rewrite a lot while I write so it would prevent there being scribbles and things crossed out all over the paper. I'm pretty sure I haven't used a crayon to write since elementary school so it was nice feeling like a child while writing seriously.
I actually thought I was not going to have enough room to write everything I had typed out so when I got to my last paragraph I stopped at a point that I could either end it or continue if I had enough room to, and felt like I had more to say.
A culture with only crayons as writing implements?
I would imagine that a culture that only had crayons instead of pens and pencils would learn to choose their words carefully as well as take their time when writing because it would always have the possibility of being beautiful.
I wonder, however, if anyone would even bother using the crayons to write. It may force the culture to want to use technology to more because of the tediousness of writing in crayon. Would there be an unlimited amount of crayons? Would resources be scarce? Crayons are small and get used up quickly. It wouldn't be very efficient to have only crayons as a way to record information. I wonder if words would turn into visual representations of what they wanted to say. Stories could be told in only colorful pictures.
Observations
I just keep thinking about how writing on paper has become outdated. Maybe it's just me, but it is so much easier and convenient to type up everything I write. I'm constantly rewording myself and deleting words and phrases. I used to wear down my pencils' erasers and I used to cross out lines at a time with pens. On my laptop I can just copy and paste and edit my thoughts better. I only use writing implements to write notes and to sketch. I'm very big on fonts and a lot of times, I like to draw my favorite quotes or lyrics out in my favorite fonts. Being a TV/Film major I think it's extremely important to understand fonts and their differences and what certain fonts should be used for. Some fonts are appropriate for only specific kinds of things: titles, road signs, captions, etc. I think I only like to write things on paper when I want a hard copy of something. Those things are usually pretty important to me.
Would a crayon-only culture feel differently about writing? Would writing be somehow considered more sacred?
ReplyDeleteI really loved your response and I completely agreed with you when you said that nowadays we tend to write on the computer so much that writing on paper with a pencil, pen, or even crayon seems more foreign to us.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with what you said about copying and pasting as opposed to having to cross out and rewrite. I also feel like when I hand-wrote, while I found it to be more difficult, it forced me to be more sure about what I was writing. Even though it is such a pain, we absolutely take for granted the words we type out.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if I were writing this by hand, it would probably just say "You make some good points!".
But, you really do make some good points! I'm looking forward to reading more of your work!
This looks like the beginning of a poem:
ReplyDelete"I wonder if words would turn into visual representations of what they wanted to say. Stories could be told in only colorful pictures."