communication across the ages

i've gotten back into writing in my paper journal again, as well as in this journal. i fell out of it for over a year, mostly from feeling that i hadn't anything to say which couldn't be shared with the whole world, if i cared to...but now it is useful to have somewhere to put my private thoughts once again. not that they are so very private, mind you, but, well–you know, half the things you say in your head wouldn't be of interest to the general public, and i probably spend too much text already on writing things here that are of interest to no one save myself. but that's a topic on which i've already meditated, and the truth is that i like having both digital and paper options available to me.

for one thing, the ease of typing allows my thoughts to flow quickly without losing them while i write. writing by hand takes a little bit more of a process–and yet i do find that i write more creatively sometimes by hand. this is an interesting phenomenon that has been noted both, i believe, in scientific study as well as by the average layperson. i remember reading an article in the atlantic last summer (while i was in the library up in salisbury, ct, while at mt. riga, incidentally) where friedrich nietzche's friends noticed that, upon switching from pen and paper to typewriter, his prose had become terser than ever. 'our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.' isn't that fascinating? what have we lost–or gained–then, by the switch from processing our thoughts with writing tool in one hand, to processing them with both sets of fingers touching keys?

that is why i prefer to maintain both, when i can. people should be made to reflect on their thoughts through both mediums, so that nothing is lost in translation, as it were.