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Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

I know your comment is in earnest and I don't mean to make fun of you, but there is something so funny in our Americanised world where everything is reduced to "it's not you, you just need to buy the correct gizmo that will solve all your problems."

Fountain pens enthusiasts are like music gear or mechanical keyboard enthusiasts, that justify their hobby and believe spending on the next shiny thing is the key to fulfil their whatever, until the next shiny thing arrives.

The thing is... if one dislikes or doesn't care about writing that they have basically forgotten how to, it is not spending money on a fancy writing implement that is gonna turn them into a medieval monk scribe.

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> but there is something so funny in our Americanised world where everything is reduced to "it's not you, you just need to buy the correct gizmo that will solve all your problems."

OTOH, it's an improvement over the other world of solving everything through "discipline" and other kinds of wishful thinking.

Like, you can complain and worry that your kid can't seem to learn how to cut things right with their scissors, try to force some discipline and conscientiousness into them - or you can stop causing them and yourself so much grief and realize that a left-handed person needs left-handed scissors, as using the wrong type for your hand works to prevent the cutting action.

> OTOH, it's an improvement over the other world of solving everything through "discipline" and other kinds of wishful thinking.

kinda, the truth is somewhere in between in my opinion.

most things related to our body movement do require training to be mastered.

I think that writing is no different endeavur. It's just that fountain pens can make it more pleasant.

> The thing is... if one dislikes or doesn't care about writing that they have basically forgotten how to, it is not spending money on a fancy writing implement that is gonna turn them into a medieval monk scribe.

The thing is, it does actually... Because it "forces" you to slow down and take time for it.

I hated writing (heavily dyslexic) but after getting a fountainpen and purposely slowing down I noticed it went better. Now I write in my own language again, I spend whole evenings writing scenes, essays, debates and letters.

Sometimes it is the tool that forces a bit of change (if you want to change of course).

A LAMY Safari with its triangle grip vastly improved my handwriting by forcing me to use a different grip than I’d naturally use. So yes, for me, the correct cheap gizmo solved all my problems.

I've played with different miracle gizmos all my life, nothing worked. When I go slow and careful I can write like a 2nd grader. As a kid my teachers were constantly mad at me until one realized I was trying and got me testing - sadly dysgraphia (likely the diagnosis I needed, though I was never formally diagnosed) wouldn't exist for several more years and so I couldn't get the right help. (if any help exists, I haven't been able to find anything useful and I'm not sure as an adult if it is worth the time - there are so many other things I can do instead)

To be clear, the Safari showed me that I can write without loathing the process. I feel I've given it a fair shot, though, and I'm back to typing everything instead. I'll use a paper and a pen to jot quick notes during a meeting or something but that's the extent of it.

Turns out I can get by just fine with hardly ever handwriting anything. The only people disappointed by this are my elementary school teachers who had insisted this was something I needed to care about.

> Fountain pens enthusiasts are like music gear or mechanical keyboard enthusiasts

There is a subreddit /r/mechanicalheadpens for these three specific interests.

I get where you're coming from, but, given that I own several pens, and my handwriting really differs depending on which pen I'm using, I would say he has a point. Changing the pen you use (even within ballpoints) can significantly impact your handwriting.

In reality, it's a bit more complicated. I've found the following impacts my handwriting:

- Grip format on pen (i.e. shape of pen)

- Ink I'm using

- Paper I'm writing on

- Nib

- And yes, type of pen (ballpoint vs fountain pen)

Having a good pen really helps a lot with writing. I'm not a fountain pen enthusiast, I don't even have one. I just noticed that there's a huge difference between a ballpoint pen and a "rolling ballpoint pen". The naming is confusing, since the ballpoint pen should also be "rolling", but whatever.

Ballpoint pens use a viscous ink that, like graphite in a pencil, needs pressure to be applied. Rollerballs and fountain pens both use low-viscosity inks that flow simply from being touched to the paper.

The latter requires much less effort to write (no constant pressure) and enables writing with the hand held mostly still, using the larger muscles of the upper arm and shoulder to create the letters. The downside is that they can create impressively large ink blots on your clothing if uncapped/unretracted, and the ink can be smeared if you touch it while wet. But pretty much every writing system still out there in use (i.e., not cuneiform or runes) was designed with a quill or brush as the instrument.

> But pretty much every writing system still out there in use (i.e., not cuneiform or runes) was designed with a quill or brush as the instrument.

That's if you know cursive. I don't think the standard small-case script most people use in their everyday life is quill-friendly.

Your style might have to change a bit, but disconnected letters were quite common in medieval Roman-style scripts, which were definitely written with quills.

> that flow simply from being touched to the paper

Or just by itself if you bring it with you on a plane :)

This looks like a perfect rabbit hole I'd be wise to avoid. At least I have a good excuse of being left handed since I would be constantly smearing all the wet ink.

Although it's not a beginner fountain pen in terms of cost (though it is not too expensive, basic models around $160), the Pilot/Namiki Vanishing Point is a retractable fountain pen that does not leak when retracted.

The cartridges for it can, of course, get expensive, but a 1 mL syringe and a big bottle of ink (even Mont Blanc ink is only $25 for 60 mL) will let you refill them cheaply.

I made the original suggestion explicitly to avoid the rabbitholes.

I use a Pelikan Jazz (20$) and a bucket of black cartidriges (100 pieces) I got off amazon for like 8$ (like two years ago).

I got a kaweco fountain pen a few months ago and i honestly regret spending those money, it's a shitty pen, some of the most dumbly-wasted money of my life.

Didn't intend to drag you down into one. Sorry.

I got one because my wife, who actually is an aficionado, suggested that it would be a good one to carry with me (and it is) due to the non-leak. I would carry it more except that we have some forms at work that are duplicates, requiring pressure, so it's useless for that. A Pilot Precise V5 RT retractable rollerball is nearly as good and cheap (in small quantities, $2-3 apiece).

It would be more charitable to say that the change forced upon yourself by changing your instrument is a straightforward way of making you mindful of what you're doing and make it easier to break bad habits. Yes, you can break bad habits by not doing them with the same tools, but the objective is to change your behaviour, not to demonstrate personal Calvinism.

I definitely write better with some pens than with others, and probably best with fountain pens (I have lost my best fountain pen though).

Its not going to make me write like a scribe creating an illuminated manuscript, but there is an awful lot of room for "better" between that and my usual handwriting with a cheap ball point.

> but there is something so funny in our Americanised world where everything is reduced to "it's not you, you just need to buy the correct gizmo that will solve all your problems."

Sigh... I'm not american and i don't live in the US.

> Fountain pens enthusiasts are like music gear or mechanical keyboard enthusiasts, that justify their hobby and believe spending on the next shiny thing is the key to fulfil their whatever, until the next shiny thing arrives.

Yep, I'm aware, that's why i was explicit on the fact that a ~20$ Pelikan Jazz is just great and "getting into fountain pens" is something that you can definitely avoid (I do avoid it, as a matter of fact).

you do you i guess. good luck.

The recommendation was to try a $5-15 pen.

That's a long way from what you're describing.

It's exactly what millions of schoolchildren are required to use when they're learning to write.

Sure, but billions of people can write just fine with a $0.50 ballpoint pen.

Also, it's not $25 or $2,500 that will stop you from doing 95% of your writing on a physical and smartphone keyboard because that's how society works nowadays. This comment cannot be written with a fountain pen, nor my work emails or communication with friends and relatives. Many people can't write any more simply because they don't really have to.

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