A return to letter writing...I hope

I hate being on the phone. In the age of digital mobile technology, it’s awkward. It’s hard to hear the other person and often stymieing in terms of useful discourse. I like to think about what I’m trying to say before I say it and being on the phone short circuits that process. It also has the regrettable consequence of violating my privacy. Anyone within earshot gets to hear what I’d usually prefer to keep to myself.

That’s why when email and then the rise in texting emerged I was thrilled. The emphasis is in trying to communicate ideas and concepts via words not little, pre-rehearsed sound bites. Plus I’m way too distracted by life to actually spend time in a one-on-one conversation by happenstance. If I want to communicate with someone face to face (or receiver to receiver) then I like to plan it, not get stuck in it by default when I’m in the middle of taking a shower, cleaning out my office or enjoying Battlestar Galactica. I consider timing…my timing… to be primary to me, not the province of the person calling me.

This week I’m taking this asynchronous communication model even farther. I actually took pen to paper and wrote a letter. It wasn’t anyone’s birthday and it clearly wasn’t a holiday. I just felt that the distance engendered by a letter slowed down the whole discourse game. That distance gave me some room to breathe. Allowed for some time between the call and response.

I appreciate that psychic space afforded by written dispatches. As a fairly defended person it allows me to discuss things more thoughtfully rather than being placed on the spot (and I say this despite the recent spate of Twitter bashing. Actually I love the economy of language that Twitter imposes. Such constraints are not always a bad thing.). As a life-long introvert, writing gives me the ability to consider and then address a more comprehensive platform of my ideas, examining them for flaws, and misrepresentations. Even as we dive headlong into the twilight of books, newspapers, letters and the like, I still believe there is a place (as was found for radio) for the old tools of connection, if only as a tool to narrow down the clamor of our many trains of thought.

I hope today’s letter will be my first of many.