I Love Handwritten Letters
A Lost Art... I just got finished with a course on Epistolary Literature (letter-writing literature), and it really was the most interesting course I've taken. There's something about letters that's so much more personal than anything we have today. A letter tells the recipient that time, energy, and thought were put into the correspondence. Anyone can send a quick, flippant text or email, but a letter requires time. And I like that. We go too fast through life these days, at least, I feel like we do. Everything must be go go go and now now now. People are rushing everywhere as fast as they can. I like to remember to slow down, take some time, and enjoy the little things in life. Letters remind me of that. I really feel much more special and excited when I receive a personal letter in the mail, which unfortunately, isn't often. And that's it too, that it feels so much more personal, when you're holding the physical ob<x>ject in your hand. Something you can feel, see, smell. That makes it all the more special.
The last class, we talked about why letters have fallen out of form, both in literature and in real life. It was quite an interesting discussion, and as to why they have fallen out of form? It all really started with the phone. Instead of sending a letter to inquire about another, we could just call them. And now we can email, text, chat, skype, facebook... I appreciate the convenience of technology (I mean, I'm sitting behind a computer screen right now writing this), but seems much more impersonal to me. Call me a luddite, but sometimes, so many advances, though more efficient, really send us backwards. I feel all this impersonality destroys connections we have with other people. Yet here I am, mourning the loss of the letter on computer. The irony of this is not lost on me.
The last class, we talked about why letters have fallen out of form, both in literature and in real life. It was quite an interesting discussion, and as to why they have fallen out of form? It all really started with the phone. Instead of sending a letter to inquire about another, we could just call them. And now we can email, text, chat, skype, facebook... I appreciate the convenience of technology (I mean, I'm sitting behind a computer screen right now writing this), but seems much more impersonal to me. Call me a luddite, but sometimes, so many advances, though more efficient, really send us backwards. I feel all this impersonality destroys connections we have with other people. Yet here I am, mourning the loss of the letter on computer. The irony of this is not lost on me.
31-35, M