Regression Analysis

Regression analysis is one many quantitative applications I use in my work. It and a host of statistical tools fall in the category known as forecasting methodologies. Well, a skill I possess is a in state of disgrace. I don't need regression analysis to extrapolate a prediction. This skill of my is trending toward the abyss. There is no positive correlation between expectation and outcome in this case. No amount of tweaking can nudge it back up the chasm toward the positive direction of the trendline. It has regressed beyond redemption. I am talking about my handwriting skills.

I had penmanship classes in junior high school. Writing continues-stroke style in a manner akin to chancery cursive was taugh to every student. I was very good at cursive writing. Throughout high school my handwriting was better than decent. For a while it was an esoteric pursuit in which I'd indulged. Perhaps I'd wanted to emulate the hand of my grandfather.

One of the things I remember well of my deceased maternal grandfather was he had a very beautiful cursive hand. His handwriting was very similar to the style I was taught. To this day, I regreted I did not ask how a Lance Corporal in the US Marine Corps could write cursive letters like he.

The wonder years became the university and the professional years. The once proudly possessed artful hand has given way to expediency. Fast scribbles of trade acronyms, notes, and symbolisms have become my communicative norms. If there were anything substantive to be written, it is done on the utilitarian wordprocesor. Utility has won over art.

I could no longer write connectively and flowingly the way I once did. It took me over an hour this morning to write six Christmas cards. Including the salutation, the body, and closing, the total word count of each card was about 20. It was not the Christmas message which hindered me. I was struggling with who I was and who I have become. I didn't want to just scrawl a Christmas greeting, and yet, the cursive letters could not be written the way they should. That was the rub.

The Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, in his classic poem, The Rubaiyat, writes: "The moving finger writes; and having writ moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it."

So it was and so it shall be. The insidious transformation from Jekyll to Hyde is complete. Goodbye, cursive handwriting. I knew thee well.