As someone who deals with multiple sleep disorders, I often find myself up at all hours of the night (or early in the morning, depending on your perspective). I’ll try not to bore anyone with the myriad of details, but one of the issues that I contend with is chronic pain brought on by problems with my neurological system. I do have medication to help combat this, but its effectiveness has proven to be less than consistent. So I often find that I’m in need of something to keep my mind off of the fact that my neurological system is totally out of whack. On top of that, my body itself benefits from a certain amount of physical activity as this somehow helps to avoid the triggering of additional pain. l’ll admit that it’s pretty screwed up all in all.
This is where typewriting comes into play. Before you think that I might be stretching for content just to help keep a blog up to date, you should know that this is definitely not the case. It seems that writing via a manual typewriter provides a really nice combination of both a mental, as well as a physical distraction to help keep my system in check and my pain at bay. That is how I came to find myself sitting down in front of a typewriter once again the other night (morning) a little after 4:00 a.m.. I was putting fingers to keys in an effort to capture thoughts on paper.
Not that the writing itself made a whole lot of sense as most of the writing that I do under such circumstances tends to be more stream of consciousness than anything else. The fact that all I’m typically good for under such conditions is gibberish that could easily be mistaken for psychedelic inspired musings is beside the point. Typewriting brings relief when things like reading for example just don’t cut it. For me, this
has proven to be one of the greatest benefits that I have personally experienced when it comes to these machines. I’ll leave any concerns over exactly why this is to someone else, I’m just glad that I made this discovery.
I’ve yet to discuss this with my neurologist, but I plan to do so the next time that I talk with him. I’ve read about countless other things that people who suffer a similar fate as me have tried in an attempt to deal with the issues that we face. For that matter, I’ve tried most of those things myself at one point in time or another. However, I can’t recall reading about anyone else working in typewriting therapy to their regular mix, even though I have no doubt that I’m not the only one to do so. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll so ahead and type my neurologist a letter detailing all of this instead of waiting until the next time we talk.
Greetings Guth,
I have to agree that there is definitely something pleasurable and therapeutic in the simple act of touch typing itself regardless of the words produced on paper. My mother put me to task learning to type one summer before I went to high school in the ’60s. Typing wasn’t a skill that I kept up with over my working years. Now as an old pooperoo with rat rodding typewriters as a hobby, I also took up learning to type. I acquired a vintage touch typing book published the 20’s and (re)learned to touch type. It has proven to be great fun and I can sense the coordination between fingers, posture, technique and brain is a major part of the enjoyment. I type the occasional letter to my sister, but just doing the drills in the book is what I really like. The literary artifacts of the underlying cultural assumptions of the sample texts given is an added treat.
Hello Ben, Among other things, I’ve received a few books of that sort that were included with a few of the typewriters that I’ve purchased. I’m planning to write about these things at some point in the future. Thanks for the great comment!
You are not alone with sleepless nights.
I too, find enjoyment in typewriter therapy although mine was due to hand injuries that got me from only one typewriter to about 100.
Perhaps musings are a great fit for Morning Pages.
I’m happy I found your blog, courtesy of Robert Messenger.
Keep up the good work.
I’m sad to learn that you too share in the sleepless nights, but I thank you for the comment of solidarity. I also very much appreciate the kind words. Thank you for the encouragement.