I have a sweet little cousin on the trembling, angst-ridden edge of puberty, and my sister had come up with what she thought was a fantastic idea for a holiday gift: a journal.
“See, when I was her age,” my sister told us excitedly, “I’d write a little message in my journal, and then give it to my best friends. They’d write a reply or their thoughts, and then give it back. We’d just pass it back and forth between one another!”
My fiancee laughed and said, “isnt’ that what little girls are calling ‘Facebook’ these days?” She’s right, you know: some of us might be able to understand the purpose of a pen and paper, but my little cousin surely woudn’t. And I think she’s missing something.
A few years ago at Christmas, I came across an old box in the garage and rifled through its contents to find an old letter from my grandpa to my grandma. Both of them are gone now – as a matter of fact, my grandpa passed away when I was only 2 – and reading the letter was a wonderful and surprising treat. His wit and charm, his warmth, shined easily through the yellowing, crinkly paper. I’d never realized how much my Mom’s handwriting had looked like his.
As grateful as I was for the “Happy Thanksgiving” messages I got on Facebook this year, or the many singing photoshopped-head elf Christmas e-cards I expect to get in the coming weeks, the cards I treasure most come from the 1970s and 80s when I was a kid and our family and friends would send them via (gasp!) snail mail. And there’s a practical reason I like these cards: I can put them on the windowsills or the mantle. And my grandfather’s note can be passed around among his great-grandchildren who never knew him. What on Earth is my cousin going to do with her page of Facebook greetings 20 years from now?
As ironic as it is for me to be writing this in a weblog – which, after all, is just a journal that I’m passing around to all of you to read if you wish – don’t forget to write this holiday season. Let’s not lose all our books to Kindle, all our cards to jibjab.com, all our sentimentality to e-mail.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, it stands to reason it ought to be mightier than the microprocessor as well.
Comments 3
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist — November 30, 2009
Anyone can write and send an e-mail, it means nothing. But it takes time and efforts to write a letter (by hand, nonetheless) and to mail it.
One of my very closest friends is in prison and has been inside since summer 2006. We correspond about 2 or 3 times a month. I send him letters in colorful, bright envelopes with comic book or cartoon characters. He likes it. He'll send me letters with great drawls and drawings. He's made a few cool canvasses with pictures he cut out from magazines, to reflect his thoughts and feelings about prison.
That'll always be better than receiving lots of e-mails from family and friends.
andrew m. lindner — November 30, 2009
I'm old enough to remember the pre-Internet days, so I agree with you. But I'd like to hear you run this one by your little cousin. You should've hear my "Media and Society" class telling me the other day that book reading is an antiquated hobby of a few bourgeois intellectuals.
jose — November 30, 2009
I got the same reaction Andrew got when I brought this up in my Internet and Politics class. They were like "tell us more about the olden times grandpa!" My big sentimental loss is aimlessly wandering through "record stores" looking for interesting music. it's interesting...losing "inefficient" things like record stores and letters seems like a negligible loss for those who never experienced them... I think that part of what you sociology folks call the iron cage!