The Art Of Letter Writing...A Value Children May be Missing
© Arden Davidson
This is indeed, a statement that captures the notion of letter writing as an art form. After all, how many of us years from now will smile warmly as we pull out a box from the back of the closet that contains our collection of ribbon-tied e-mails? How often will we find ourselves relaxing in our beds as we delve into a full-length novel or biography based on an historic record of phone calls?
Somehow we have forgotten the value of letters in our relationships, and if we don't pass those values onto our children, they may be lost forever. There are some feelings that can only be expressed and immortalized through the written word. It is a special gift when we offer another person our thoughts, hopes and aspirations through the oldest and finest means of communication. In addition, there is something almost flattering about knowing whomever sent you a letter thinks enough of you to sit down and patiently share his or her innermost thoughts with you. There is also something exciting about opening your mailbox and finding a letter from a friend or loved one slipped in amongst an unwelcome stack of bills and advertisements.
Alas, we now live in the high-tech, high speed world of instant gratification. Millions of phone calls are made every minute of the day, most of them never actually resulting in connection with a live human being. Increasingly sophisticated answering machines, voice mail systems and pagers, along with the ever-convenient faxes, e-mails and cell phones, can't help but perpetuate this ongoing decline in the more time consuming task of writing a letter.
According to an article in Time Magazine, "Within a few years, the mobile phone will evolve from a voice-only device to a multi-functional communicator capable of transmitting and receiving not only sound, but video, still images, data and text. A whole new era of personal communication is on the way." The problem is, nowhere in this plethora of advanced technology, is there a place for the most personal form of communication, letter writing. Even if you don't buy the concept that letter writing is an art form, just try to imagine a world without mail. Hundreds of thousands of postal workers be unemployed. The income the government depends from the sale of stamps would be gone. Most importantly, "The check is in the mail" would no longer be a viable excuse.
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