Why Would Anyone . . .

[AzJon]

Yes, I'm broadening out beyond just a journal because the motivation of people has been called into question. It needn't be so.

The entire inception of the thread is calling the motivation of people into question and dogging them for not using permanent ink.

You will note that my initial comment, that was mis-read, reinterpreted, and shoved back, was about "boasting" or, as Paddler has put it, "filter the description through your idiolect," had nothing to do with motives or reasons to write (or what to write with).

Do as you will, just as Paddler will continue to be dumbfounded, as I will continue to find writing for one's unborn kin as fanciful and being broadly unimportant, and as everyone will carry on, just the same, as before they ever clicked on this wildly out of control thread.

Now excuse me, I have a very boring, non-permanent existence to attend to.

[Jon Szanto]

The entire inception of the thread is calling the motivation of people into question and dogging them for not using permanent ink.

Jon, with the greatest of respect (and shared name!), I simply didn't read it as such and it didn't come across to me as harsh as it has to you.

Yes, I disagree with a good portion of Paddler's assertions but I am comfortable enough with mine to not read it as an attack. My motivation in the thread is to address the fact that we can all have a spectrum of viewpoints on the matter of personal history and the sincerety and honesty necessary for first-person writing. I'd never ask anyone to change how they choose their own course, only that they be respectful of other opinions. I find your passionate thoughts on these matters, as well as those of people like Wuddus, to be of interest. If they interest me, I can't imagine why they wouldn't be of interest to future generations of your own family, but that is still only my take on it, and you will and should do as you see fit.

[Wuddus]

The entire inception of the thread is calling the motivation of people into question and dogging them for not using permanent ink.

Jon, with the greatest of respect (and shared name!), I simply didn't read it as such and it didn't come across to me as harsh as it has to you.

Yes, I disagree with a good portion of Paddler's assertions but I am comfortable enough with mine to not read it as an attack. My motivation in the thread is to address the fact that we can all have a spectrum of viewpoints on the matter of personal history and the sincerety and honesty necessary for first-person writing. I'd never ask anyone to change how they choose their own course, only that they be respectful of other opinions. I find your passionate thoughts on these matters, as well as those of people like Wuddus, to be of interest. If they interest me, I can't imagine why they wouldn't be of interest to future generations of your own family, but that is still only my take on it, and you will and should do as you see fit.

I believe my views on passing on information and views, is fashioned by my views on receiving it. If I am having a conversation with someone face to face, I can challenge a view, ask for clarification, offer something in return... and all the while there is a context, it is a moment in the present, and it has relevance. Should I pick up a journal, no matter how well it is written, it is a poor substitute for that conversation. I do not feel "engaged" in someone else's journal, and I think that colours my views about writing my own.

There is ONE written piece which I may consider leaving for someone else, and that will be written with a dip pen, and yes the ink will be permanent - though not as a result of this discussion. Everything else that I do day to day will be non-permanent, and permanent ink will not find its way into any of my fountain pens.

If we were to sit down over a beer, I am sure I would have much to share that would be of interest. However, I have no desire to do that with the other person not being present, which is what journalling effectively is. I have no presumption that anyone else should value that written work in future, and I would rather spend my time in the present, rather than try to project my presence forward to another era. Dedicating many many hours of my short existence here, working on one document which someone else may never read, simply holds no merit for me, whether anyone in days to come would find it interesting or not.

Aside from the journal that I'm NOT going to write, there is nothing which needs to be permanent. The marks I make on paper matter in the moment, or maybe in a week or two, but thereafter are worthless to me. If anything, I'd prefer to have inks that only last a few months, and then fade to nothing, so I can use those books again.

[mhosea]

I keep pitchin' to you guys and you keep missin'. I think you are using a glove with a hole in it.

Just one baseball metaphor per paragraph, please.

(Hey, I'm trying to lighten it up a little in here.)

[welch]

I never use the current "bulletproof" inks that bond with paper.

- Started writing with "ink pens" around 1957 or 1958, using a Sheaffer school pen with washable cartridge ink. Why? Our parents graduated high school around 1940, carrying memories of ink-sacs that burst in class, of spills -- on clothes or carpets. When I gave Dad a fountain pen ten or fifteen years ago, he told about a buddy who had left a fountain pen in his shirt pocket and then road along in the back-seat of a dive-bomber to get flight pay. "That pen exploded the first time the pilot pulled out". (Ball-points, as best I can tell, were sold as the clean replacement to liquid ink.) We all used washable Sheaffer or Parker ink, and you can find it, still, on EBay.

- Old washable ink-writing will last a long time. I have junior-high essays from 1962. Easily readable, although the paper is not as fresh as 55 years ago. Check your paper: will it last 60 or 80 years? If not, then the ink is irrelevant.

- Protection from spills? Just take reasonable precautions. We wrote on 16-or-20-pound three-hole paper, and put the pages into a notebook. Some years I got a zippered notebook, but mostly not. When it rained, we covered the notebook, and our text-books. Then stuck everything under our raincoats. It was easy, and, of course, no teacher would accept "my notebook got wet".

- If we wanted to save our writing, we put it into a folder and put the folder into a file cabinet. In 1992, there was a fire in the apartment below ours, just below our bedroom. NYFD got the fire out by dumping water, after many books got scorched. The folders, including my essay from 1962, survived in an oak file cabinet.

- Office spills? Never, in 35 years of "software engineering" did I spill coffee or seltzer or a coke on papers. Or hardware, which mattered a lot more in, say, 1984, than my design sketches. Notebook, documentation, random papers on the left. Coffee on the right. It's just a habit, but we all learned.

- Odds & ends: 1950s and '60s Quink and Skrip permanent ink is tough. It might not have an extra ingredient to glue itself to paper fibers, but lasts. Why use any ink more permanent? (Consider: until the mid-60s, the fountain pen was one of the standard writing instruments. There was a giant market for inks, and both Parker and Sheaffer had chemists and engineers able to develop all sorts of inks. They never found a market for "bulletproof" ink.). Sheaffer and Parker permanent inks were not iron-gall. I don't know when iron-gall inks went out of fashion in the US, but it must have been before my time. Things-that-must-be-permanent? My company quit saving contracts around 2005. We scanned them and saved the copies to servers in several data centers in US and Europe. Our customers -- big banks -- did the same. By now, "cloud" services save things to their servers.

[Paddler]

We were made to use washable inks in school in the 1950s. The writing I did then, stored in looseleaf notebooks and spiral notebooks, has nearly faded away completely. The "cloud" wouldn't be safe even if you owned the cloud yourself.

[mhosea]

We were made to use washable inks in school in the 1950s. The writing I did then, stored in looseleaf notebooks and spiral notebooks, has nearly faded away completely.

Well, I do know that Parker Quink Blue faded at an amazing/alarming rate for me. I wouldn't ask "Why would anybody..." about it, but the bottle of it that I once bought probably got dumped out at some point because none of the answers I could conjure up resonated with me.

[ethernautrix]

I gotta laugh when people say, "I don't spill things. I don't have accidents, because I am careful. I take precautions."

Man, I'm glad that works for you!

I am not accident-prone, and I consider myself a careful person, and if I, a careful person, can knock over a bottle of ink while filling a pen, then obviously the stick isn't up my ass far enough.

Sorry, Welch. I'm not directing that at you but at all the years of hearing people dismiss others' anxiety over or experience of spills that ruined their notebooks. It happens, even to smart, careful people. I wouldn't insist that people use permanent or bulletproof inks, and I don't use them exclusively. Sometimes I use colors that will disappear when a rain cloud appears overhead; I accept that. But for most of my writing, even the writing I shred later the same day, I use Noodler's Black.

Because I like it, end of story. I assume that everyone does what they do because they like it, and all this imperative-mongering is futile.

Yes, yes, I understand that the OP expresses wonder that people use "disappearing" ink (exaggeration for effect). Oo, I know! Let's all take that as a personal affront! Much as I am doing now, in a fun way (at least for myself), about people who never spill things and are never around people who spill things or aren't around when people who spill things spill things on your notebook. Or who don't care if the ink washes off their pages, who take their notebooks out in a storm and leave them open on the ground, cos they don't care about what they've written. GROOVY, MAN! I love it that those people are so fearless! I'm not kidding. I admire that easy ability to let go.

Me, for now, I want what I've written to be as permanent as I am, which is to say, to be around until I don't want it anymore, rather than have a misjudged-distance bump into a table cause a to-scale tsunami of woda mineralna gazowana or coffee or soup, leaving a devastation of pages and lost work.

Everyone has one's level of risk tolerance. Accept the mystery.

[Deb]

What I write isn't intended to be permanent. Very few things are actually permanent. Most of what I write is typed up later into one blog or another. If I have an accident and some ink goes where it wasn't supposed to, it helps if I know it will wash out.

[AzJon]

I feel like this is an appropriate story here:

Iconic Banksy Artwork Shreds Itself After Being Auctioned Off at Sotheby’s For $1.4 Million

https://laughingsquid.com/banksy-art...after-auction/

[ethernautrix]

I feel like this is an appropriate story here:

Iconic Banksy Artwork Shreds Itself After Being Auctioned Off at Sotheby’s For $1.4 Million

https://laughingsquid.com/banksy-art...after-auction/

Wow.


I'm stunned and impressed and, you know, I think it's cool, cos I didn't just pay $1.4 million for it. I suppose the buyer won't be held liable for payment.

Thanks for sharing that story!

[Lloyd]

Can the buyer shred heir check prior to paying?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[milkb0at]

I'm sure the buyer will be delighted, since the artwork has probably just doubled in value.

[DickBrowne]

I'm sure the buyer will be delighted, since the artwork has probably just doubled in value.

Tripled, I believe, if what I read last night is to be believed.

I once ruined a set of perfectly good work notes by knocking over the ink bottle from which I was refilling my pen. Permanence wouldn’t have helped at all... I believe the customer still remembers me, though.

Oh, and hello from a newbie in the UK (just getting ready to leave home for the London Writing Equipment Show!)

I shall do a proper intro as soon as I can.