Writing Instruments

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Seed Thought

While reading Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones (1986) (recommendation from Randsinrepose’s post), I came to the following passage

A ballpoint, a pencil, a felt tip, for sure, are slow… I mostly use a cheap Sheaffer fountain pen, about $1.95… they often leak, but they are fast. The new roller pens that are out now are fast too, but there’s a slight loss of control. You want to be able to feel the connection and texture of the pen on paper."

Her claim is about:

Speed (keeping pace with the racing thoughts), and
Tactile feedback / control (the feedback from the writing process with the paper). This is a very subtle thing, which one can realise only when one is deep into the process. = Feel of Connection with the paper, with the process.

Some Physics

Fountain pens use water-based ink that flows via capillary action and gravity (you cannot write while hanging upside down!) –> creates a thin liquid film between the nib and paper that actively reduces friction –> nib glides rather than drags.
Ballpoints require manual pressure to spin the ball, which then releases viscous oil-based paste. There is an inherent resistance to the process.
Rollerballs also use water or gel based ink and are very smooth (as she rightly notes) and need very less pressure. The modern rollerballs are actually better in terms of extreme consistency (nibs have some variance), nil maintenance, and no leaking (many fountain pens, including the one which she used, have problems of leaking).

However, even though in terms of physics and engineering, rollerpens are better, they don’t match the sensory connection of writing on paper - the feedback and the ink line variations.

My Current Picks

Pentel Energel BL417 (0.7mm) - one word fantastic! One of the best pens all around the world in this category. I am using black, blue, and red variants in 0.7mm size. Smooth, multiple colors available. The body is available at ~40 bucks and refills available everywhere at 25-30 bucks. It has a 0.5mm variant also, but I haven’t used it till now. This is the workhorse one can keep everywhere.
Uniball Gel Impact (1.0mm) - great again at the 1.0mm level. I have a black and blue variants. The blue variant body has broken though. Around 100 bucks.
Uniball Eye (0.5mm) - multiple colors available. Around 100 bucks. Writes very smoothly without smudges. Fast drying and heat-stable (can keep in car in Indian summers). The problem is it is a use-and-throw.
Hauser XO - fine as a throwaway. But it is scratchy. Easily available. Extremely cheap (10 bucks).
Schneider One (0.6mm). This one blows the Energel also. It has a Super-Flow system - a pressurized ink delivery mechanism which maintains consistent flow from first to last drop. The ink is water-based, but both waterproof and document-proof (there is a Sign brand also within its ecosystem). Once you have written with this, there is no going back. You cannot lose that experience and it will haunt you. In India, it is made in collaboration with Luxor (Luxor Schneider). There are two variants in this - I used the Schneider One Business (around 150-180 bucks), which is a use and throw, unfortunately. There is a variant called Schneider One Change, which has refills available.
1. I particularly used the Schneider One Business (SOB) in Blue ink. On a plain paper, it wrote beautifully. The next morning, I saw the page in sunlight, and it had a sexy purple/violet tinge. The exact color is violet-blue.
2. The Schneider One Change don’t have the violet-blue ink. Those only come in black, blue (normal blue), and red. Dang!
3. LX-Schneider Max 0.5mm - not used by me, so no opinion.

Final Verdict

Schneider One Business - Violet-Blue is my most favorite writing instrument. But it suffers from absence of refills (I hate the use-and-throw systems, because they are inefficient and feel like unnecessary contribution to waste) and relatively expensive.

The Ink Viscosity Spectrum

From thick to thin, the spectrum is as follows:

Ball point
Standard Gel
Micro-gel 0.38
Energel (this is thin end of gel spectrum)
Liquid Ink Rollerball (Schneider One)
Fountain Pen

The Pros and Cons of Micro-gel Pens

The smaller the point size (0.38mm), the more force is needed to put the gel on the paper. This you feel by more drag feel on the paper. This also causes more grip pressure –> you will feel fatigue in a long writing session. Use these as precision tools - for slow, deliberate writing, for making dense notes, diagrams, or marginalia.

Alternative

I continued the search of how best to have the feel of SOB (pun intended) and the ink color. There is no other way in the rollers and gel pens (they have violet options though, but not violet-blue). Didn’t bother to check the ballpoints.

So, the next option is back to Fountain Pens and to match the ink with similar shade. Hrmph.

First the Inks

Krishna Inks have extremely cheap but widely praised options. They have a Arctic Spring Lilac option - but I could not find from where to buy.
Lamy has a Dark Lilac T52 - probably the closest to SOB shade - unavailable.
Diamine Violet
Lapis-Bard Purple Rain - cannot find online.

Then the Fountain Pens

Filling Systems

There are multiple ways to fill ink in a fountain pen. In the older days, there were basically three ways to fill ink:

Open back and fill directly into the barrel. Modern terminology = Eyedropper fill.
A built-in suction or piston mechanism in which you suck the ink = Piston-filler pen (like Lamy 2000, TWSBI Eco).
Rubber vacuum thing which could be used to fill ink through the nib = Build-in converter but permanent.
Instead of rubber thing, there is a refillable suction unit = Removable Converter (Lamy Z28).
Cartridges, where you break top, and insert = Proprietary or international cartridge.

For use with inkpots, you will have to avoid pens with option 5.

Nib Systems

Nib Label	Approx. Line Width	Equivalent Gel Pen	Best For
EF (Extra Fine)	0.2–0.4mm	0.38mm micro-gel	Very small, precise writing
F (Fine)	0.4–0.6mm	0.5mm gel	Small to medium writing
M (Medium)	0.6–0.8mm	0.6–0.7mm gel	Everyday writing, cursive
B (Broad)	0.8–1.0mm	0.8–1.0mm gel	Large writing, signatures

Note about Lamy Nibs: Lamy nibs tend to wider than standard (their idiosyncrasy). So, their M nib will tend to write like B from other brands, and their EF is like an F.
The EF and F nibs write very sharply, but then depending upon the paper, they can be scratchy during the upstrokes. You will need better grade paper to write with them.
If the writing is moderate size, use standard M (Lamy F) and if the writing is compact or non-cursive, then use standard F.
1.1 Stub Nibs: These are much wider nibis and have thick horizontals and thin horizontals. Works like calligraphy

Specific Recommendations

Absolute Budget level - Platinum Preppy (600-800). It has a standard international cartridge. You will have to fill it up with syringes. Messy.
Many of the Pilot pens. Didn’t look deeper into them.
Lamy Safari with the F nib - it has a plastic body but very well regarded. Triangular grip (you grip the pen in a particular way only and not in any random way). It has an included converter in their box. Can change nibs, but their nibs are relatively expensive. They have numbers like 012/014, etc. which are for their color but the pen remains same.
Lamy Vista - exact same pen as Safari, but with a transparent body.
Lamy Al-Star - same as Lamy Safari, but with an aluminium body.
Lamy 2000 - a collector’s pen, with gold nib.
TWSBI Eco - it has a built-in piston filler (like Lamy 2000), which makes it a higher ink capacity (about 1.7-2.0ml versus 0.5-0.7ml in a Z28 converter). Triangular grip.
TWSBI Swipe - like a Safari, with converter (but bigger than Lamy’s). Round grip (so, you have to consciously remember to hold in a particular way)

Final Choice

TWSBI Eco (purple color) Medium Nib + Diamine Violet Ink.

Sources

Ordered from makoba. Other option is Onlinemantra
Main source - https://www.penaddict.com/top-5-pens
Lamy India

The Silence Between Propositions

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tractatus 7: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. The sentence has been treated as a limit on philosophy.

Reading the Zhuangzi alongside the Tractatus this week. Cook Ding’s knife finds the hollow spaces in the ox - the joints, the cavities - and passes through without effort. Wittgenstein’s limit is Cook Ding’s hollow: not an obstacle, but the shape the work takes.

I am not sure this goes anywhere yet. But it is the kind of thought worth keeping.

What Obsidian Cannot Do

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After almost three years of using Obsidian as my primary notes environment, I have arrived at a clear-eyed view of its limits. The graph is beautiful and mostly useless. The real value is in the plain-text Markdown files, which will outlast any application (original inspiration Derek Sivers).

The mistake is to treat a knowledge base as a product. It is not. It is a process. The act of writing a note is the work. Whether the note gets linked to seventeen other notes is secondary. A PKM system that takes more time to maintain than it saves in retrieval is a hobby, not a tool.

I have stripped my vault back to: daily notes, source notes, and atomic notes (in the Zettelkasten sense). No MOCs. No templates more complex than a heading and a date. Simpler is faster.

Weblog - There Is No Ox