I am a fast typer. I could not tell you where the keys are on the keyboard. Yet, when the thoughts form in my mind, somehow without really thinking about it my fingers go fast and I watch the letters slide across the screen. How does my mind know so quickly which direction to move my fingers? I do not think about it, it just happens. Except for the random word with a z. That usually slows me down just a bit.

My typing has got me thinking about the lost art of real letters that we write with our fingers. With a pen or pencil. It seems these days schools are not teaching cursive or the art of true handwriting. Kids today know how to text faster than they can order chinese food, they have a language that only they can decipher. Yet, I wonder if true legible handwriting is extinct? Does it mean that in the age of texting, Facebook, and email that we have lost the personal touch and flair that happens when a personal note is shared with another individual?

I did not learn keyboarding, typing, or computers until the fifth grade. These days children are not even learning on computers, they learn on iPads. I have no problem with that, they already learn in a way that no other generation has learned. It is different. Their brains are or will be wired differently. It will breed a generation of adults that think in a way that we cannot even imagine. Yet, I am concerned. There is a design and art in handwriting.

Is handwriting lost forever?