The Letter

There is something different and almost magical in writing a letter to someone. And I don't mean sending a Hallmark card and leaving it at that. I mean a real letter. The kind that is filled to the brim with slanted, messy script detailing your life, your family, maybe even your pets.

Sure, today we have a much better way of communicating. There's Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging, Texting, and e-mail. And of course, these have their many advantages that many people can't imagine living without. But when we decided to embrace these new standards of communication, we lost something as well. We lost intimacy. It used to be, when letters took weeks, sometimes months, to arrive at their destinations, people didn't just send information. They sent hopes and dreams and love. A shortage of letters from someone usually meant something drastic had happened. And today, with thousands of e-mails reaching their targets in less that a minute, there is I suppose a sense of assurance, but less of a personal contact between two people.

And this is why letters today mean so much. In a world that is moving at an accelerated pace, where the lines around the edges are blurred, receiving something that a loved one took the time to hand write simply so that you could feel it's weight on your finger tips is that much more powerful than reading it on a computer screen.

If you enjoy letter writing and receiving as much as I do, click on Letters of Note and Today I Saw in my blog roll. Thanks for reading!