See if I walk my talk or not

Taylor over at Noteworthy* asked if “The Art of the Letter in a Digital Age” is an antiquated concept. The question is one I’ve been turning over in my mind very often in light of my current project, The Leaving and the Left. What follows has no scientific basis, merely observations from what I’ve seen, read, experienced and heard.

From a young age, I wrote letters. My best friend lived almost 300 miles away. This was in the days before cellphones and email, before Facebook and Myspace. We wrote letters because it was inexpensive in comparison to long-distance phone charges and we had no other way to talk with one another.

Letters take time. One must remove one’s attention from others in one’s life, turn one’s attention away from the television, ignore the radio, and immerse oneself in the emotion trying to be expressed. For some, that is enough, but even that act, in its immersion into the moment, is not enough.

Some people are intentional enough to select specific papers and pens with which to express their thoughts. Some adorn their missives with doodles and scrawlings meant to elicit a specific emotion from the reader. Some anoint their letters with a scent meant to revive a memory, an event, a feeling, from the reader.

Others are not so thoughtful, merely putting word to paper. Even this act, however, is one of intense intimacy.

I love you with all my heart...

It was with a letter, a long one, that I mended a rift between my father and me that had only intensified as I aged. I moved to Montana from Ohio and wanted to connect with him, decided, Hell, we’re both adults, lets deal with this, and wrote him a letter. I expected no response. Instead, I received a handwritten letter from him answering many, though not all, of my questions; a heartfelt letter that I believe would not be possible in a digital age. One that has allowed us to become very good friends to this day.

Letters were once our only opportunity to communicate across the miles without great expense. In the United States, for the longest time, the United States Postal Service was the least expensive way to communicate. When I was growing up, long distance phone calls were a great expense, email hadn’t yet been made available to the masses, and cellular phones were a dream in someone’s head. Telegrams were efficient, but somewhat more expensive than letters. Faster? Sure, but speed came with a price.

Today, the former largest telegraph service in the US no longer performs this service. From their website, “Effective January 31, 2006, Western Union discontinued all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services.” By the 1990s, email was the choice of economically minded folks to communicate quickly across great distance.

Now, many young folks, from what I’ve read, choose Myspace over email. Social directories are visually based, and therefore more attractive to a generation that is constantly bombarded with stimulus from all angles. Other folks having disdain for Myspace, choose a more “mature” version of Myspace, Facebook. Both offer a way to message another member which the user has “become friends” with.

Besides these web-based solutions to communication, there are, of course, instant messaging solutions. IM was once proprietary. Users had to sign into their service of choice, be it Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, mac.com, Gtalk or IRC. Now, there are services that aggregate all of the above listed providers into one client, making communication much easier. Even Facebook and Myspace allow for “chatting”.

And that’s only the Internet. What about cellphones? (Or Skype?) I have a plan that allows me a ridiculous amount of minutes and I’m able to call anywhere in the United States for less than $70/month. I remember long distance bills when I was a kid greater than that, when we (my best friend and I) had decided that writing letters was not enough. And what of text messaging (SMS)? I can send a friend a 160 character message in a couple of seconds, saving me cost on my cellphone minutes, and communicate what needs to be communicated within a few minutes.

I’ve made the case that communication has become easier, more pervasive and less expensive, but is it still an experience? How many of you remember receiving actual mail? Not just bills and offers for an upgrade on your cable, but actual MAIL from a loved one? It definitely is an experience. A rare one as far as I can tell.

The question becomes: is communication denigrated? Implicit in the question is an understanding of the value of the unspoken message in the message. The feeling of a handwritten note is decidedly much different than an electronic communique of any kind, to be sure. Letters can be long and mellifluous, while most electronic communication is stunted and, to be kind, concise.

Telegrams are no longer available. Postage rates are rising. Electronic and cellular communication is becoming more widely available and inexpensive. I would argue that the art of letter writing is dying with my generation. (I was born in the 70s.) Or at lest the generation born in the 80s. It would be interesting for me to see a scientific study to determine how many under the age of 25 write letters regularly.

I hope this isn’t the case for a variety of reasons. Taylor asks, “Do you think if we stop writing letters that we will lose some thing [sic] – a way of connecting with one another that forces us to slow the mind and really think about what it is we are trying to say?”

I would answer YES to Taylor’s question.