Where Have all the Typewriters, and Quills Gone?

As I was studying for my Spanish final using online flashcards, a sudden sense of sadness swept over me, and hit me like a horse drawn carriage. I came to the realization that anything I write for school or correspondence is via laptop, cell phone, or tablet. No one passes notes in class, they text under their desks. No one writes scented love notes in an elegant scrawl any longer; the closest thing to a love note that women receive nowadays are Facebook messages from strange men telling them that they are, "hawt $tuf."

Gone are the days where people have to type slowly as to avoid the jamming of the typebars on their shiny Remington Remette typewriter. Nevermore will anyone need to dip their quill into their India black inkwell  every other word, or blot the droplets spilt from the nib of their ostentatious ostrich feather.

I have never known the times where typewriters or quills were commonplace necessities, but there is a hole in my heart and in the tapestry of society where these things used to exist. This is a void in which no amount of texting, IMing, Facebooking, Snap-Chatting,  emailing, Tweeting, or Skyping can satiate.

Receiving an electronic message means that the sender had nothing better to do while waiting in line at Walmart. To ameliorate their chronic boredom that has emerged from the malaise of modernity, they pulled out their iPhone and wrote something to you with lots of LOLs and emoticons after checking their social media sites. On the other hand, receiving a handwritten letter means that the sender took a chunk of time out of their day to only think of you, to block out all other distractions, and write. And if the sender wrote that letter with a quill, that means that they were willing to take even more time out of their day than if they wrote with a modern ink pen or keyboard.

Nothing beats the sense of focus and ability of precision that comes with using a typewriter. There aren't any distracting apps, social networking sites, or YouTube videos of people blowing things up in comical ways to distract you. All you can do is focus and type, then behold your literary masterpiece.

*Disclaimer, I hypocritically typed this blog post on my laptop.