God knows there’s a lot of convenience having our schedules on our phones and all of our contacts and “ToDo” lists in the cloud. Our online calendars make sure that no matter where we are, we can add a doctor, or car service appointment or know when our next meeting is.
I’ll admit it’s really nice and for many years now I’ve relied almost exclusively on these modern conveniences.
I’ve noticed that my handwriting has gone absolutely to hell. My handwriting was never beautiful either cursive or printed. Both looked like I’d strangled a palsy stricken chicken then dipped it’s feet in ink. My writing was so bad even doctors had a tough time reading it.
Now days, my writing is worse. Much worse! I’d bet that a future Archaeologist, upon discovering anything of mine that was handwritten, would assume they’d discovered another type of writing for which there was no Rosetta Stone.
I’d been aware of the degradation for many years. Last year it all came to a head when I’d written some notes during a phone call and found that I couldn’t read them an hour later.
At the time I was annoyed at myself. After ten or twenty minutes I was able to decode my chicken scratch and make sense of it. The problem wasn’t spelling it was formation of the characters themselves. I immediately recognized the problem as one of fine motor skills.
Without actually writing by hand, I’d begun to loose fine motor skills, not due to any malady, but due to lack of use. I proved this hypothesis by writing large on a piece of paper, then scaling the size of the characters down to fit in a single ruled line. (And yes, I was wearing my glasses!)
For those of you old enough to remember learning to write letters in grade school this is why all of us, as children started out with paper ruled in 2” lines. It wasn’t that our vision was terrible, it was that we needed the space to train the fine motor control in our hands.
I’d also noticed some other effects of the loss of fine motor control. Chief among these was soldering . I used to be able to solder the finest circuits by hand. If I made a repair on a board, you had to look really hard to see it. Cold Solder joints? Not on my work!
Now… Not so much.
A year ago, recognizing the problem and its cause, I dusted off my old Franklin Planner. I cleaned out the 10 year old notes and calendar, then wondered if Franklin Planners could still be purchased.
A quick web search reassured me that Franklins were in fact, still a thing. There wasn’t nearly as wide an array of page designs as there once was, but Monticello, (an old favorite) was still available. I placed an order and was pleasantly surprised when the package arrived two days later.
So I began writing by hand again. My penmanship has improved over time as a result. (I’m still not going to win any awards!)
I still receive digital Calendar invites and my household still uses common shared ToDo lists. But I transcribe the Calendar invites into my Franklin. Yes, this is redundant but it keeps pushing the ball forward on improving my penmanship.
Now when I’m on the phone scheduling something I’m noting it in my Franklin daily notes. I’ll add the event to the Franklin first, then move it to the Online Calendar if needed.
Admittedly, it’s hard to switch back to Paper and Pen. Digital services are cloyingly seductive. I’m willing to eschew the ease and convenience in trade for penmanship.
Another benefit of the trade is that my soldering ability is coming back. It’s not the quality it used to be, that’s something you acquire by doing it 8 hours a day 5 days a week. But it’s improved to the point that I’m not ashamed of anyone seeing my work.
This year’s Franklin refill arrived Monday. It’s not the old standby “Monticello” this one is something new. It’s clean and elegant with a bit less visual “weight” on the page. I noticed when I placed my order that there was a larger number of design variations on the Franklin web site.
I wonder if more people like myself are going “Retro” as a way to keep old skills?
As I mulled this over, an article notification popped up on the phone about a sitting congressman being served a warrant by the FBI for his phone.
According to the article, The congressman was traveling with his family and all the FBI wanted was his phone, this struck me as odd. Then I recalled that almost every “High Profile” FBI search and seizure over the past few years has also included seizing the person’s phone.
Thinking about it, I realized of course they’d want his phone. His phone would have a log of all his calls and their duration. The FBI would have access to all of his private text messages including those between him and his wife or children. His entire Calendar would be available as would his contact list. The phone would even have a GPS log of places that he’d been recently.
That single device provided the FBI with anything and everything the FBI could want and it’s 1000 times better than the old McCarthy era tactics which required your friends or colleagues to serve you up. Your contact list could provide the FBI with 100 or more additional people to investigate due to “guilt by association”.
I rarely have more than 100 contacts in my phone. I just don’t interact with that many people. Folks I haven’t heard from in a year or so… I delete. My Calendar, Text Messages, Photos, and ToDo list are another matter. There are literally years of data in those systems. The GPS issue isn’t much of a problem because I delete that log whenever I think about it.
I wondered, “Why don’t people execute a remote wipe of their phones when the FBI seizes them?” (I would just for spite!)
All of this got me to thinking. Will the handwritten word and perhaps day planners experience a renaissance?
I find myself wondering if it is time to move my data out of the cloud. Is it time to memorize important phone numbers and addresses again? Does Thomas Brothers still make their excellent Thomas Guides?
I’m not guilty of anything, I’m not likely to have my phone seized by the FBI. It’s a matter of privacy and principal. Why make it easy for them, or for any other 3 letter department of whatever?
It occurs to me that true protection of privacy is only possible if everything is in your brain. Anything and everything put on the ‘net lives forever. Has it come to the point that the only way to ensure our privacy is to disconnect?
The FBI these days looks more like an enemy of the people and the enforcement arm of a socialist/communist government than law enforcement.
That is a chilling thought. Perhaps my switching back to writing on actual paper in my day planner is a good thing.
I can burn the day planner. I can write notes that only mean something to me in it. I can refuse to decode those cryptic notes. I can choose to not clearly recall details, I can invoke the fifth amendment.
My digital devices, not so much. They can only do as they’re commanded. My devices have no concept of Constitutional Rights and no ability to determine if they should obey valid commands or not. (I’m not even sure that I’d want them to have that ability) There are some things only a human mind can, or should do.
Have the powerful little bricks in our pockets become a liability? I was reminded of Blade Runner.
Will someone in the near future be visiting Apple and having an exchange like this:
Rachael: It seems you feel our work is not a benefit to the public.
Deckard: Replicants are like any other machine – they’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem
I’m going to be thinking about stuff like this for a while. In the meantime, I’m going to be using my Franklin a lot more.