Writing a letter, a lost art.
I was watching "The Crown", a show about Queen Elizabeth on Netflix, and noticed how many letters these people back in 1940-1950 wrote and read. Every day, or week, they'd send a letter to friends, family. In fact, if you look at the study of history, letters and journals are very important historic documents because they gives us a candid insight into what these important people really thought and how they reasoned. It also tells us what happened at different point in time.
So, a historian from 2300 studying the 21st century will find nothing but our digital records. Which is in some ways an improvement - just think of the blockchain, records impossible to lose - but in other ways i feel that it is a loss of coherence. It is one to chat, chat chat, chat about all and nothing and other to send a LETTER. The medium forces you to be briefer, to try to get to the important bits, to gather your thoughts. That's not nothing.
One might wonder, who even can I send a letter to? If no one, why not yourself, I answer. Isn't that what a journal really is? A letter from yourself to yourself? And a very important one. It's not coincidence that every therapist out there recommend journaling. Finding yourself is hard when you are typing in 10 chat windows in the same time.
I am trying it myself and find it very difficult. In a way, I try to treat my posts as part journal/part literature so that helps but still, it's very different. And sometimes there's nothing to write about. But being with your journal, facing the blank page can be a learning experience in itself.
Lucky for you, maybe you do have someone who would appreciate a letter. You know, it's something special that people might actually keep and remember, when a mail or Whatsapp message is just a notification somewhere.
Enjoy!
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One of the great joy of my childhood was to write and receive letters from penpals. Later on, I moved on to Messenger, emails, etc... But it never had the same feeling and mystic.
mystic is the perfect word here.
Information was wayyyy more uncommon before computers :) Now a computer can churn out all the texts that existed before computers existed, all in one day. If you look at Steemit as a personal/community development blog and a point-of-contact with others seeking the same, I think it's also somewhat uncommon in this day and age!
that's true. it's backward to think that letters could add anything in terms of data and information, no, but it can help one to condense the thoughts that matter. Very interesting to think of steemit as such! nice idea, man
Good post and interesting thoughts! There is a family member of ours who is currently serving time in prison and the only communication we have with him is through writing letters... it really does seem timeless and in a way more meaningful to see those handwritten letters... you get to see their penmanship which is slightly more personal and gives a reminder of who they are as a person.
wow. really? I thought they get e-mail in prisons now! Very interesting. What does he
say in the letters?
They may... He has been in there for a while and still has a while to go... He may have lost some of his privileges because of things that happened while he has been in there, but Im not certain. Letters are the only form of communication he has chosen to use, so we just go with it and don't really ask.
He usually just says how he's doing and asks about all the family and extended family, just wants to know what everyone is up to.
interesting! thank you for sharing
Thank you for writing this. Technology brings us many great things, but it has plenty of casualties, too. I am just old enough to remember letters quite well.
Exactly! There's a trade-off but "the pen and paper" still has power..i wonder if the generations after us, who never actually did anything with pen and paper will feel the same...
Great post! I hope letter writing is an art that will be revived. They aren't even teaching cursive in American schools anymore.
that's very funny to me. that in 20-30-50years maybe cursive will be almost unreadable safe for a few "elite". it's a natural progress becasue we use keyboard and tablets and etc...true, i get it. But sometimes one must wonder if we don't lose anything else in the procress as well. Are we being Luddite or there's really some truth to that? Hard to say, but I'd love to see a REAL debate on this.
It's quite possible that cursive might go extinct in a few decades! I'd enjoy hearing a debate on this as well!
They were mad for it, there was nothing else. Being a pre-internet kid, I loved letters and even had a couple of pen pals and a girlfriend at one point who lived far away and with who I had to write letters to. Crazy stuff. Now they won't find anything!!
oh man. i always wanted a penpal but never got one...still, i kind of made my dream come true with mIRC. not the same but i'll take it.
It was a cool thing, but by the same token as soon as the internet came I was all over it and quickly was like paper? Whats paper? Whats writing?
:O)
I actually do write letters once in a while. My handwriting has gotten really bad though so I need to keep up with it. LOL But I've got 2 sons who are getting ready for bootcamp and I've already got my stationary and stamps to give them love and support because nothing is as sweet as getting a handwritten letter from someone. These days you can almost consider it a handmade gift.
Journaling is important too. I usually write my darkest thoughts and then burn them to kind of cleanse the palette and my soul. :)
this is amazing. I heard someone said that when you're angry at someone write it down and put it away. if you still want to send it in one week, do, if not burn it.
I would say that is very sound advice! And it works with email and even responding to comments & trolls too. When I was a community moderator (a long, long time ago), the best advice I received was to sit on my hands - another way of saying do not respond in the heat of the moment because if you do, you may actually fan the fires instead of letting them burn out and go away. :)
I'd probably write a lot more letters... if my handwriting didn't look like that of a serial killer. It really is pathetic. But I was inspired to write my mom a letter this month.
you know what you can do? send postcards and write something there. it's pretty cool and also if you don't envelope it, you must think how to write something beautiful but not reveal much as anyone can read it.
Nice. And it's an excuse to keep it short. Heck If I just sent my mom a postcard that said, "I appreciate everything you've done for me." She'd cry for three days. LOL
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