Missing the Beauty of Letters

The other day I took a good look at my main email’s inbox and had a start. Not only was it overrun with Facebook and Twitter notifications (oy!), it was practically choking on “special offers” from American Airlines and MacMall, as well as redundant receipts from various online stores. My email inbox had become a junkyard, a sprawling desert of crap dotted with the occasional friendly “how are you?” email exchange. I immediately felt depressed.

Not to long ago….early last year, maybe…my friends and I would write long, thoughtful emails about everything: movies, music, our darkest hours, what we were up to in Africa, London, California. Now all I have to do is check their status on Facebook to know if they had toast for breakfast.

I ain’t knocking Facebook; I can’t because I am on it like everyone else, and would probably be classified as an addict, just like everyone else–it makes connecting with folks much easier and it speeds up the interaction with instant access to photos and one-line thoughts. But does it also makes those exchanges less filling, satisfying?

Yes.

Tragically, yes.

Recently, I met a woman at a house party in my neighborhood, and for three days afterward we wrote brilliantly insightful emails to each other concerning the establishment of a vegetable stand in our hood. On the face of it, this sounds fantastically boring, but what made it thrilling was that we had both taken the time out to sit down and compose a note to each other that was longer than 140 characters and that was not going to be broadcast to our network or the world. I awaited her responses with glee, as it reminded me of the time my friend Sarah D. sent me a handwritten five-page letter (back and front) from Morocco. That this too felt foreign and exciting at the time tells me that an art form is dying, at least in my world where it is much loved.

I am off to Holland and then London starting this Sunday. My close friends will be able to monitor my ever meeting, canal-side escapade, and brownie-eating moment should I choose to post my whereabouts and thought process on Facebook or Twitter. Which means it might be a god-given blessing that my iPhone will cost me the equivalent of a month’s rent to turn on in Amsterdam and London. I don’t think I will find posting status updates very thrilling from a pay-as-you-go phone.

This little time out, both from my iPhone and the social networks it keeps me connected to, will probably be best spent writing thoughtful emails to the folks in my life that matter most.

* photo by Graham Soult