You've Got Mail!

     As many of you know, I love to write letters. especially to my friends. I love everything about it. The scratching sound my fountain pen makes on the paper, the flow of the ink with every word that I print. Even the occasional blotches of rouge ink on my paper makes it all so much more real. You will never find a letter from me typed from a computer. I just do not like writing personal things on a computer because it becomes much less, well, personal. Even creative writing I detest doing on a computer. All inspiration is sucked right out of me when there is nothing but a blank white screen starring at me, almost forcing me to write something. Anything at all. But, When I have a blank sheet of lined paper in front of me and a fully inked pen in my hand, that is when things start cooking.
     Every letter that I have written by hand I have put much effort and thought into. Probably much more then is needed, but I believe that is what letters are all about. If you are not willing to do what needs to be done to get your idea or feelings across on a piece of paper then why bother in the first place? Using a pen and paper just makes what you are writing much more intimate then the same thing typed and printed out. The fact that you directly caused the letters on your paper to appear may sound simple, but I regard it highly. In a sense it is kind of like magic. One minute you have one letter, the next, you have hundreds. At least that is how I see it.
     And yes, it does take a little more time for your handwritten letter to reach it's destination and in this day and age we have ways of getting the same point across at pretty much the speed of light. But, you do not get the same feeling or emotion when you read a messege on a screen that you do when you read a messege from a piece of paper that you are holding right in front of you. It is much more personal when it is physically present. Much like how talking to a person face to face is more personal than instant messaging them.
     In the times that we live in, I believe that we have traded the  intimacy of communication for its convenience.