Did you know that your handwriting can give you away?
Jill Price is a school administrator. She has never achieved the heights of success as one would imagine. But she can become a celebrity in her own right, provided she agrees to share her secret.
But Jill refused.
For thirty years.
For thirty years, scientists studied her remarkable memory in secret because Jill is an extremely private person and didn’t want publicity.
She can recall events such as the exact day on which Princess Grace died. When JR from Dallas was shot, when the Unabomber was arrested and when the L. A. Riots took place. And a lot more.
Eventually, in 2006, the scientists persuaded Jill to share her story for the sake of science.
When her story broke she was in the newspapers, on television, on talk shows, and in magazines, as she feared.
Oprah Winfrey interviewed her in one of her shows, and so did Diane Sawyer.
While studying her methodology to remember things, scientists came across a weird thing - her handwriting.
Jill has, what the memorists call, an autobiographical memory. She remembers things in relation to her life.
Each day she chronicles, in amazing detail, everything that happened that day. She has 50 thousand pages of her life story in strange handwriting that looks like a column in a newspaper.
If scientists ever needed proof that handwriting is a reflection of personality, here it was.
The very first thing that hits you is how strange it is.
And how very crowded.
In fact, it is crowded to the point of obsession – which is possibly the key to her whole personality.
Her mind is so crowded with events of her personal life and what happens around her that there is hardly any space between words and lines.
And yet when you enlarge the picture and follow the words, there is a strange sort of rhythm that seems to follow through.
The margins of the column are well justified both on the right and left sides. The lines are, in fact, quite straight – only the words bob up and down within them. In short, Jill seems to dance to her own tune.
Scientists observed that, in some ways, it resembles the quirkiness of Leonardo Da Vinci’s handwriting, who used mirror writing so that the merely curious would not be able to read his work.
When magnified, much of Jill’s handwriting appears to be highly individualized – and this is one of the marks of high intelligence.
I learned about Jills’s story from Sandra Fisher’s article.
I met Sandra Fisher on LinkedIn a few months ago.
She is a graphologist. I didn’t know such a profession existed before I met her. Naturally, I was intrigued. Last week I interviewed her. I wanted to know more about her life and how she got interested in studying handwriting.
Here are some excerpts from the interview:
I live in South Africa, where we have wide open spaces and the most perfect weather in the world. I am a mother of three children and five grandchildren.
I was a high school teacher. In my early years, I was given a class of unruly and difficult boys. The first thing I noticed was that they all had illegible and distorted handwriting. I didn’t know why they all had such ugly handwriting, but years later, when I put two and two together, I realized that it was an indication of bigger problems.
Eventually, when these boys started to improve, amazingly, so did their handwriting. This was the spark that made me look into graphology. I realized it was a very helpful resource not only for teachers but for people from all walks of life. It was a fascinating journey that has provided me with years of inspiration.
Sandra has written eight books on graphology and has two more in draft form. She has also created three graphology courses.
Sandra convinced me that graphology is an ideal hobby because a large part of graphology deals with understanding the impact of life experiences on personality.
People who have a lot of accumulated wisdom and a wide range of life experiences can add insights gained from graphology and can add a lot of value to those invested in their personal development.
According to Sandra, graphology can not only give you a greater understanding of your own personality, but it will also give you insight into the personalities of other people with what seems like uncanny accuracy.
It’s all perfectly logical as it’s based on sound principles of behavioral study. By deciphering handwriting alone, you will be able to assess intelligence, introvert/extrovert tendencies, good/bad tempered, emotionally volatile or composed, social adjustment and emotional responses of individuals.
You can find Sandra at her website Graphology World
You can also stay in contact with her by subscribing to her newsletter, The Graphology Review.
You can read some of my articles listed below:
Ugly handwriting and what it says about you
Generosity and Selfishness in Handwriting
Freud and Jung. The end of a Beautiful Friendship
A Graphology Showcase with a free Dishonesty Checklist
This week I am recommending Sandra Fisher’s books which are on the practical use of graphology. Here are all eight of them. Take your pick to get you started. You can get them here.
The newsletter I have been enjoying for the past few weeks is Seeing Things by Liz Donnelly. Liz is a New Yorker cartoonist and writer and journalist and all kinds of things. Her cartoons are brilliant, and her writing is thoughtful.
With ‘Seeing Things,’ she is building a community of people who see and read observations about life and make them as well. And for people who have concerns about the world but know how to be funny.
Check out her recent posts, Lifting The Truth and Getting Squeezed.
Write Your Book In 30 Days sprint is finishing next week. One participant is close to finishing her book, other three are powering through.
I am planning another sprint in the Oct-Nov period, when I am back from a trip from India. It will be the last sprint in 2022.
If you are interested in writing your book in 2022, register your name here. I am only taking six participants.
That’s all from me this week.
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I am not a handwriting expert so you don't have anything to worry about from me. Sandra will say 'weirder the better.' Haha!.
Besides, your handwriting is pretty good. I have seen it in your diary.
I've always noticed people's handwriting. It explains a lot about their personality. I have memorized my daughters, my Mom and one sister's handwriting. and occasionally, I've memorized a co-worker's handwriting is they are artistic and expressive. Clear and legible handwriting speaks volumes about someone. Thanks for writing this articles Neera.