Please, Mr. Postman

Lately, I've been writing a lot of letters. I've sent a few to Christopher, a few to Nick, and I'm working on one for Hillary right now. It's not a long list but letters take awhile (at least for me they do). Overall, I find that letter writing is not only an excellent time waster that involves no electricity or computers whatsoever, it's also highly romanticized.

I dig that.

Sometimes, when I'm writing a letter, I'll light a candle and pretend to be in some Jane Austen novel (even though I hate Jane Austen and, on the whole, prefer Emily Bronte if I'm going to have to pick a chick-lit author). I also like letter writing because it lets me gets my thoughts in order. I'm a such a conversation spaz in general. This is probably because I'm really awkward in social situations and that carries over into my conversation, which is full of random topics and stupid jokes no one gets. Thank GOD that on paper, I come off as slightly educated. And maybe even - dare I say it? - interesting. I'm going to attribute this to the fact that letter writing lets me sit and figure out what I want to say before I say it. It totally eliminates any possibility of my frequent foot-in-mouth episodes. That's probably something I should take up in real life, but that would take a long time and I would be even more quiet than I normally am (which isn't a good thing). I also just think letter writing is more personal than emails or Facebook, which I've decided are soul suckers. I don't respond to emails because I don't want to and I'm trying to get off Facebook more, but that's easier said than done. I need, like, a 12-step program or something for that. But I digress. Letters, like film photography for me or writing poetry in my notebook, is something that we're losing touch with the more technology takes over. It makes everything so much easier and accessible, which isn't always a good thing. We're losing the face time we would normally have thanks to FB chat and Skype (although I'm thankful for that when I want to talk to Flat 3). Conversations become merely text to be over-analyzed or over-simplified with "OMG"s and the like. On the whole, when things are easier, a lot of the fun and originality in the world disappears. Kind of related side-note but mostly because it's cool, check this out:


Now, I don't know about you but I don't want a brain implant! I don't even want an iPhone. They are just trying to fast-track life while I want to slow it down, savor it. Ideally, I would want to do things the old-fashioned way for as long as I can. I used to think I wasn't a romantic because I hated the idea of getting flowers or chocolate or being cliched, but now I realize romantic can mean other things. For me, it's developing my own film instead of using a $700 SLR or writing letters to people I miss dearly. Think about it: the process takes time that would otherwise be spent online. And it lets you think. You're doing something much more worthwhile when you're writing a letter. It's a very selfless thing, I think, because you're taking time out of your schedule to write to someone. Also, it's just more rewarding. Afterwards, you sit and think, "I wrote that," or, "I printed that picture. And developed that film..." It's completely satisfying in a way I haven't found in anything else. I think everyone should try writing letters.


Now, if only they would write BACK, then you're set. There is nothing better than receiving mail.