Dip pen and bone

Whenever I use a dip pen, I always feel that time slows down just a little. When I'm working with a ballpoint pen or a keyboard, the act of writing inevitably becomes subservient to efficiency and speed. But what about a dip pen? There's a subtle "pause." Those few seconds from dipping the nib into the inkwell, lightly shaking off excess ink, to touching it to the paper. During that brief moment, I surprisingly don't think about anything. It might be akin to taking a deep breath or entering a meditative state.

I first held a dip pen when I mistakenly bought a G-pen. It was a simple curiosity – I wanted to try out that archaic tool used by manga artists. Of course, I don't draw manga, nor am I particularly good at art. It was probably just a whim of a stationery lover, but now I can't quite remember. As some of you may know, G-pens are quite difficult to use. You can vary line thickness with pen pressure, but as it's a tool specialized for manga drawing, it requires practice and forces you to be conscious of your hand and the nib. It's not suited for casual, thoughtless writing.

With that memory in mind, I had a resistance to dip pens until Kakimori-san proposed them. However, the dip pen I picked up at the Kakimori store completely changed my old impression. First, the nib had a shape I had never seen before. A bullet-like shape with grooves running along it to hold ink. This shape is superb, allowing for easy switching between thick and thin lines by simply changing the angle of the pen body. And with ink accumulating in the 8 grooves, the ink lasts longer, allowing for extended writing.

And the fact that you can use other colors immediately just by rinsing the nib is also noteworthy. This was quite a shock. For ink and fountain pen enthusiasts, there's a dilemma: either buy a separate pen for each color you want to use, or clean the pen and change the ink. Cleaning takes a fair amount of effort, and while the time spent maintaining them can be enjoyable, it's not something you do frequently. The ability to easily overcome that and use multiple colors makes me happy. It's like being able to use it for watercolor painting.

All the dip pens displayed at Kakimori were thoughtfully designed, with an appearance that naturally blended into modern life. That, coupled with the staff's gentle explanation of how to use them, made dip pens feel much more accessible, which was the impetus for Amanai to start carrying them.

Not just with dip pens, but whenever I think about writing tools, an image comes to mind. It's that famous montage from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey." The bone thrown into the air in prehistoric times, which instantly transforms into a spaceship in the next shot. Time and space leap forward dramatically, showing the evolution of humanity and the development of technology in an instant. While there are various interpretations, I relate it to tools for humankind.

Tracing the lineage of pens, the stylus appears as an ancestor. These were pointed reeds or sharpened metal used to scratch and record on walls or clay tablets. The Lascaux cave paintings immediately come to mind. I think I learned in school that they were the oldest paintings, but just to be sure, I checked and apparently even older ones have been discovered in places like Indonesia. Well, regardless of what's oldest, it makes me realize that no matter how much humanity evolves and technology develops, the fundamental act of scratching something with a thin, sharp object hasn't changed at all.

When writing on a PC, corrections can be made easily and repeatedly. In fact, I'm writing this very text on a PC. I write, delete, retype, and delete again. There's not much sense of failure. It's efficient. But with a dip pen, a line placed on paper generally cannot be erased. Of course, you can correct it later, but the trace remains. That's why, when writing a letter or drawing a picture, you might write each character and line a little more carefully. The trace left after the ink dries, as a result, brings out individuality.

Writing "individuality," I think it's surprisingly a very modern theme. A nib dipped in an inkwell is an ancient stylus, and in a sense, nothing more than a bone. It's a simple, primitive tool. But when it glides across paper, something from another dimension suddenly appears. Words with meaning, stories, expressions, or emotions yet unnamed. Like a spaceship, it flies out from within a person to the outside.

Of course, a dip pen doesn't possess any special magic. But at the very least, it slows down the pace of my thoughts, changes how I direct my attention, and as a result, leaves a trace, a line, of the boundary between myself and the world. For me, that's what's important.

When the ink runs out, I dip the nib into the bottle. Repeating that simple action, I continue to write quietly. Nothing special happens, and it may even seem meaningless. But sometimes, a leap occurs. Each time, it updates how I see the world, just a little. Perhaps the dip pen exists for such subtle updates. At least for me right now, that's what it is.

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