Writing is a nightmare
Luis Matte ~ 马特
Personnel Training and HRBP| Recruitment, Marketing, and Partnerships Specialist in International Education
Even with AI, Grammarly, Google, and whatnot, I still find writing tedious and even painful. However, how was it some decades ago?
Recently, I was missing to have what I called an 'analog hobby.' I wanted to have some trade that would allow me to stop being in front of the computer or any screen as much as I am nowadays. Therefore, somehow counterintuitive to what I am writing in this article, I bought a writing machine (I do like creative writing with horrible grammar and spelling, basically, to throw up thoughts).
And yes, I have written two short stories already. While writing, I put on my new-old radio to listen to Chinese in the background to see if that helps me not lose the Chinese I have left in me. That is to say, between me and a 叔叔, there are fewer differences to make.
Nonetheless, romanticism aside, the letters are hard to press and often get stuck. My left hand is extremely weaker than the right, and I am starting to feel some pain in the wrist. Sadly, I have a long list to follow. Apparently, our delicate fingers are only used to unsound characters in an all-touchscreen already.
That made me start thinking about the older generations and how they did their Ph.D. theses without being able to press Ctrl + Z, how to organize a thought without Chat Gpt, or how to look rapidly for a quick BIO of someone who sounds dramatically important in an instant and that, thanks to Wikipedia, you realize is not.
However, this time, it was pushed by my international life; the other day, eating tofu with fish flavor with my Chinese friends, I thought. If these doings changed from generation to generation in my culture and others more similar, how would it be for older generations in China, the country of my friends? As you can see in the article's picture and the following, it was, at least for my Chilean eyes, extremely more complicated than even the worst writting machine or typing machine ever!
They told me that first, a person needed to enter a room containing all the characters of the Chinese alphabet (can I even call it an alphabet?).
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Then, you needed to pick character by character and put it on a wooden piece to accommodate them in the order you wanted to.
Only when you had all you wanted to say in the wooden box ready were you prompted to stamp your first page on a white paper and then repeat forever in pursuing a Master thesis or a short story. I do not know how many Chinese people preferred to continue writing by hand in those days; I will ask around.
I guess, next time when I am about to complain in front of my Microsoft Word blank page, with dictionaries already loaded, my paid Grammarly assisting me all the time, and Google or Baidu open to provide me with all the information possible, my screen with reading mode on and all the different gadgets devices and apps at a finger distance, I will think ten times before complaining again. I suppose this is true for all cultures, as I demonstrated in the previous example, and it should encourage all young and the still-somehow-young like myself to respect the efforts of the ones who were putting efforts before us.
#education #internationaleducation #internationalstudents #creativewriting
Educator in IB·DP/MYP - English B and History, also: TOK, EE and CAS | Secondary Humanities & Religion | Cambridge | IGCSE | Online tutor | 'Spare-time' writer | 日本語話せます
7 个月I write and publish for a few reasons. ?? I think if you are going to teach English, you should practise what you preach, just like the 功夫 master ?? who habitually does his morning routines. Secondly, writing is a creative outlet that can be shared and sometimes requires research into the unknown. This is good for the mind. Maybe the soul too. 谢谢
writer, ESL Instructor and Mentor, protocol development, research
7 个月The act of writing surely gets hugely easier now with pc and all the tools, but the challenge of grabbing readers’s attention gets harder, due to their short attention span now
DMSc, PA-C @ One Medical
7 个月I couldn’t disagree more. I truly enjoy writing and I wish I had more time to dedicate to it. While completing my doctorate studies, I first realized how cathartic writing can be. Writing is an art form that lets us organize our thoughts better than just speaking. There's a real beauty in mastering grammar, vocabulary, and the flow of language. When we write, we have the time to carefully choose our words and shape our ideas in a way that's simply not possible in the moment of a conversation. As you become a skilled writer you learn how to wield the tools of language - from punctuation to sentence structure - to create something that's not just functional, but genuinely artistic and expressive. It's a craft that takes practice and dedication, but the end result can be truly captivating. Writing allows us to transform the abstract workings of the mind into something tangible and share it with others in a way that's both intellectually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing.