How it started
Originally it was about calming down. Work was chaotic at the time — dozens of things a day, my head never stopping.
A friend said practising writing would slow me down. I tried it. One brush, a bottle of ink, a few copybooks.
What I produced in the first month, I am still embarrassed by.
What several years taught me
1. Slowness is mandatory
Write fast and it scatters. Every stroke has to land, and the energy between strokes has to connect. There is no shortcut and no automation.
For someone whose entire profession is about finding shortcuts, that is almost medicinal.
2. The feedback loop is long
While you write, it looks fine. The next day, every flaw is obvious. The gap between doing and judging is at least a day.
Compare that to code, where the compiler answers in seconds. Learning to work with a slow signal is a different skill.
3. Improvements are invisible from inside
Day to day nothing changes. Then I compare something from this month with something from two years ago and the difference is obvious. Progress was happening the whole time, I just could not feel it.
Why I keep doing it
Not to become a calligrapher. It is the one hour a week where the only measure of success is whether I was present.
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