Thank God for the Internet. No longer must we carefully compose long letters for far-off friends; no longer must we wait days for the USPS to deliver them, days again to hear a response, and time again after that to think of how to reply. What efficiency is ours! An e-mail costs nothing, but a letter is 45 cents. (Did you know that?) We can chat with friends on the other side of the globe nigh-instantly by various means, none of which require expense or time or effort. The letter is dead. And we should absolutely resurrect it.
Letter-writing is good for you, I swear. Here are some reasons:
1. Handwriting. Okay, fine, you don’t actually have to write a letter with a pen or pencil. You could type it. You can even send it via e-mail to save those 45 cents and a bit of time in transit. But there’s something to be said for writing by hand. One, you have to think about what you’re trying to say before saying it (no delete key), which itself is probably building some kind of important or handy brain function. When you do mess up, your letter bears the scars of your mistake: eraser marks or ink stains. And it’s a thrill to see a friend’s unique style of handwriting on a page meant just for you. It’s fun to develop your own handwriting. But yeah, you can type it too, if you really want.
2. Your attention span will probably improve if you actually sit down and write a letter instead of distractedly shuffling several single-syllable -type conversations on iChat. No, seriously.
3. It’s not about you; a good letter is like a good gift. You write them for other people, not yourselves. By contrast, listen to the way we talk to each other when just chatting. David Foster Wallace wrote that (very much paraphrased) it sure is funny that old telephones had 6 holes on the listening end and 6^2 holes on the talking end. Let’s face it – most of the time, we care way more about what we ourselves have to say than about our conversational partner’s contributions.
4. Priorities. A letter makes you reconsider what’s important in your life. When you summarize to a friend what’s been going on lately – longer than “nm, u?” and shorter than a novel – you have to pick and choose what you’re going to talk about. Most people don’t care to hear about the things we post on Facebook.
5. You get to say it all at once. Whatever you’re writing about, you basically get to talk without any kind of interruptions. This means that if you’re trying to explain your theory of animal metempsychosis or something equally bizarre, you get to explain better than in conversation, and you probably won’t be as misunderstood. And when you have to make an effort to explain it in a coherent, written form, you might even end up understanding and developing your own points better. And when reading others’ letters, you can’t interrupt them. You have to hear the whole argument before making a response. I’ve had some pretty excellent debates about politics, culture, philosophy, etc. via letters.
The closest thing there is to letters these days is blog posts. But those, usually intended for wide audiences who will probably skip off to a different site before reading the first paragraph, lack the personal feel of letters. I used to receive far more letters than I do now, back when it was still common to write them. Myself, I still write letters, and you should give it a try too, if it’s been a while since you did. I’m perfectly aware that despite my best efforts, there will be no reclaiming the letter tradition, not while our current technology is around; no envelope-borne revolution; no mad dash for stamps. Letter-writing is transient, and it’s on its last legs. But the Internet will find its way to obsolescence someday, too. Everything does. And then, I’ll be glad I practiced my handwriting.
Over and out.
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