The modern man cannot seem to get away from ink. I mean, seriously. Its everywhere I go. I might ask What is ink but there are probably more expert informers on the internet to field that question for you. Instead, here is my experience with ink.
I write, I write a lot. When I can at least. There is nothing better than being fully absorbed with a good book or curled up in a windowsill with a pad of paper and a fountain pen loaded with that horribly staining black fluid that yet makes my sloppy, over-fast handwriting look somehow drawn out and elegant. I love it, even when it puts black spots in my bedding or stains my hands purple for days at a time.
And after I write with it in notebook upon notebook, overcoming my absorption with TV or games or even the well-meaning necessary realization and time spent chilling with friends and family, my words are not done with ink. Rather they are simply beginning as everything my fountain pen writes I must type into my computer, edit agonizingly, and then print it, spraying glorious sticky black toner down upon the page and feeling that lingering heat as a corporate constructed machine produces my masterpieces—or my fevered frantic scribblings alternately.
I must thank HP and Epson and all the inktoner sellers of the internet. Because of them I get to feel that satisfaction that the ancient Chinese or medieval Germans felt when they pressed down on the sheets of parchment, lifting the device over and over to press their painted on ink into something that could be read by or read too their fellow countrymen. I get to see my ideas made real, given form. It is a great gift, this ink.