Mark Cuban's blog, Blog Maverick, is something I've been reading with interest for over six months now. For one, he's the owner of Dallas Mavericks, and a self made billionaire. And I think public personality wise, he's more accessible than the Winfrey-Buffet clan.I loved his latest musing called, I forgot how to write. Here's what he says.
I was sitting in a meeting the other day and decided I needed to take some notes . My memory isn't the worlds best, so if I think there is something worth memorializing, I will take notes.
Typically I will just use my PDA or Laptop . I can touch type pretty fast. I can thumb type on my Sidekick almost as fast as I type using all 10.. Then when Im done, I email the notes to myself and I have a permanent, searchable record of the meeting. I've been doing this for so long, I can pretty much type as fast as I think
This particular meeting for some reason I couldnt go the digital route so I can had to go 1900s and actually handwrite my notes.
What a disaster. I couldn't write.
I literally couldn't take notes fast enough because as I wrote, I realized I couldn't read my own writing. Not only could I not read my own writing, when I tried to slow down so that everything would be legible, I realized that actually writing each letter as part of a complete word was actually difficult.
I had forgotten how to write. Sure i could fight it out by going slowly. Very slowly. But any skills I had that used to enable me to quickly write what I was hearing or what my thoughts were, had left me.
Am I alone ? Should I start a self help group ? Should I take a class with 5 year olds to relearn ???
Is writing with a pen on a pad of paper not like riding a bike ??
I have to say, my experience has been exactly the same. Other than earning the billions of course.
