Long, long ago, on a snowy night in December of 2019, a friend at my bar told me, apropos of nothing but my handwriting, that the hashtags #handwriting and #allthedifference were currently trending on something he called TikTok, which I’d never heard of.

Three hours later, however, I’d downloaded the app.

Some eight hours after that, I uploaded the following video — with the hashtags #handwriting and #allthedifference.

Then I uploaded another.

They were a hit!

To my surprise, they were a hit.

Some twenty-two days later, after uploading several such videos with those same hashtags and going viral or semi-viral, I deleted the app.

It turns out that a growing obsession with your likes, comments, views, and subscribers  is, in addition to being preposterous and everything else, exhausting.

#ButWhatever

#IStillLikeTheVideos

#WhichTookASurprisingAmountOfWork

#OneOfWhichIsParticularlySpecialToMe

#AndIt’sNotThisOne

#OrTheOneAfterIt

#HandwritingIsImportant

#ForManyReasons

#TheMostImportantOfWhichIs:

#ItPromotesThought

#AndClarityOfThought

#FarMoreThanTyping

#AndInSoDoing

#Handwriting

#GrowsTheMind

#WhichIsToSay:

#Handwriting

#MakesYouSmarter

#ByIncreasingYourIntelligence

#ByMeansOfCreatingDeeper

#Clarity

#ByMeansOfTheFocusRequiredIn

#Handwriting

#OrRather

#WritingOutByHand

#YourThoughts

#WhichInTurnRequires

#Focus

#TheFocusOf

#Attention

#MuchMoreSoThanTyping

#AndInSoFocusing

#AndPayingAttention

#OneUnavoidablyBecomesMore

#Intelligent

#AndPatientIn

#Learning

#AndAccruing

#Knowledge

#AllBecause

#Handwriting

#RequiresMoreTimeThan

#Typing

#AndIsMoreMethodicalThan

#Typing

#Because

#ItCallsForFar

#Greater

#Attention

#Focus

#Concentration

#AndThisIsTheWay

#InWhich

#HandWriting

#Makes

#AllTheDifference

#Don’tLetItGo