Friday, September 23, 2005
Keeping Our Letters
The Constructive Curmudgeon is lamenting the the loss of letters, you know, handwirtten snail mail.
Electronic communication can be soul-less, but it does not have to be. It's a new set of creative tools to be sure, but it still allows for creativity. Properly managed, it even has the permanancy of paper.
What do you think?
For one thing, we tend to replace reflection with rapidity. Email is fast, very fast?and often, too fast.That is an indeniable truth. But he continues
Nevertheless, our handwriting-heavenly or ghastly or somewhere in between-is our creation, the inscription of our identity placed on receptive material. We may choose the type of pen, color of ink (or inks), and make idiosyncratic notations. Yes, email gives us a plethora of choices, such as fonts, emoticons (now animated), text size, photograph-pasting, and so on, but these are pre-selected for us by others. They are not created by us specifically for another. The manner of writing itself-apart from its overt intellectual content-may be revealing. A good friend of mine told me that her mother discerned the disheveled state of her soul not by the content of her writing, but by the contours of her handwriting.Email does not reveal ourselves in the same way that handwriting does, but when well done, it will be revelatory nonetheless. For the trained, you can create fonts and customize photos. Properly used, the computer is a tool for creativity unparalleled. I never learned how to draw, but I have made art with my camera and Photoshop.
Electronic communication can be soul-less, but it does not have to be. It's a new set of creative tools to be sure, but it still allows for creativity. Properly managed, it even has the permanancy of paper.
What do you think?
