Sunday, June 05, 2011

Letter Writing: Makes you feel special

So for the sake of being awesome I wrote a letter that I plan on mailing off to a friend who lives in a far away city only reachable by plane today. Said friend also just reactivated facebook account, emails with me on a regular basis and is easily accessible by text message. But you know what? I sent her a letter; you know, the ones made of pen and paper rather than printer ink and paper?

As I wrote the letter I realized how terribly small the world is... It makes it so much harder to be intimate and confidential. I mean honestly, sure I can talk to friends via interwebs, but I can do that to everyone. In the old days you only talked to people you actually cared about because if you didn't care about them you wouldn't go through the long and time consuming act of writing out a long winded letter and sealing it and sending it and waiting for days to weeks on a reply. Today, I can send off a message and expect a reply in seconds. It's just something that I can do to talk to just anyone; which makes talking to friends like that lose the special appeal.

So I wrote cursive with an ink pen on pretty paper. Hope it's legible... regardless it was awesome and I feel like I should have worked by candle light and with a real ink pen:
It's so beautiful... I want one... but I doubt I'll ever get a real chance to use it properly, which sucks because again I'm forced to use modern technologies. 

Not that I don't like technology, it's wonderful and useful; but at the same time leaves me wondering if life would be better without it. It feels as though the ability to instantly communicate takes away from the intimacy of communication. I almost feel that something means more if one has to wait for it. 

And gosh do I have to wait for it now! Apparently there are random strikes going on in Canada Post... apparently letters are still being delivered but I'd assume that they're just trying to quench the public. Worst part is I recently realized how obsolete the mail delivery system is... Honestly if I want to write a letter I can email. If I need to get my bills, there's online billing. Advertisements and coupons get sent to my email and searched for over the interwebs. Paypal allows you to send money. If I want to make a package delivery there's UPS and FedEx. 

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Canada Post is basically obsolete in this modern day world. Is there any a case where there is a form of mail that can only be delivered via Post? I certainly can't think of any, but perhaps I'm just not thinking outside the box. (I was very tempted to type "outside the mailbox" just now...)

Still I hope I can finish all my letter writing soon and get everything delivered in time. It's also quite stressing that I just sent off a scholarship application via Canada Post and now I'm worried they won't ever get my application...

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