Handwriting: a pencil, a vocation (letter)

By Martín E. Córdoba (former parliamentary stenographer, former Pitman Shorthand teacher, and shorthand calligrapher)

Below, I transcribe the full letter I wrote, titled *“Handwriting: a pencil, a vocation”, published by the newspaper La Gaceta *de Tucumán in its June 22, 2026 edition:

“During my years as a parliamentary stenographer, beginning in 1996, my inseparable companion was a double-ended pencil, sharpened with care. With it I practiced shorthand, which demands accuracy and speed, and also calligraphy, striving to maintain clarity of the signs. The shorthand calligraphy I developed in 2010 and publicly presented in 2025 through my blog Shorthand Calligraphy taught me that writing is not only about recording words, but about giving them artistic form, uniting vocation, memory, and aesthetic sense.

Each session in the Legislature of Tucumán was a challenge, but also an opportunity. I took quick notes in the old chamber and then climbed the long staircase up to the stenographers’ office to translate them. That physical journey became symbolic for me: each step represented turning difficulty into a path.

Today, as I recall those days, I feel the pencil holds a special value. Humble and simple, it taught me that handwriting remains a bond between generations. Writing by hand is not a relic of the past: it is a living act that strengthens the mind, memory, and aesthetic sensitivity. Reviving and promoting subjects such as Calligraphy and Stenography in schools would be a bet on a more complete education, where tradition and modernity coexist. Even today, cultures such as Japan continue to give great importance to handwriting, considering it a discipline that strengthens the mind and spirit.

In times of computing, when everything seems digital, the pencil reminds us that writing has a manual root. Technology is valuable and necessary, but it can hardly replace the humanity of the gesture of writing by hand.

Because all writing, at its core, begins in the hand and remains in memory.”

The sheet illustrating this article can also be seen in our publication “Songs Written in Shorthand Calligraphy”, together with a poetic epigraph composed by Natalia G. Martínez.

We invite you to read our articles “Calligraphy and Shorthand: A Tradition That Should Return”, “Shorthand Calligraphy: When Signs Become Art”, and “My Beginnings as a Parliamentary Shorthand Writer”.

This article is available in Spanish.

© 2026 Martín E. Córdoba. All rights reserved.