Things I Love #5: Letters

I'm back.

School started last week, so there's been a lot of "starting school" going on, and not a whole lot of blogging. I think a fun game would be to see whether being in school eventually "takes over my life", and if so, to guess when that's going to happen. Actually, that sounds like a terrible idea. But in any case, I'm back, at least for now.

One of the things we did in class yesterday was sit in silence for an hour and write letters to our future selves. I was initially confused, but after I realized what was going on, I immediately got excited. I thought to myself, holy crap, we're getting paid to do what?? Then I remembered I wasn't actually being paid. But it was okay, because they gave us free envelopes, and as much free paper as we wanted, and that was kind of like "compensation."

And the truth is that I would write letters any day, even without compensation. Letters are basically one of the best things that can happen to a person, right up there with accidental dates and no lines at Starbucks. They can be as powerful as a very powerful man's fist, or as sweet as any number of sugar-filled foods.

Also, you can read letters as many times as you like, whereas if you asked someone to tell you something over and over, they probably wouldn't do it. And the next time you tried to talk to them, they would probably pretend not to see or hear you.

Which is why it saddens me greatly that letters have gone out of style.

I'm not saying that email, and other technological replacements for letters, are bad. I happen to think they are perfectly complementary.

In the olden days, for example, I would send a letter and then sit around for days, or even weeks, waiting for a reply. Today I can write a letter, go the post office and mail it, then pull out my web-browsing phone in the post office and send my friend an email, tweet, or both to let them know that a letter is on its way.

Once I get home, I can send the friend a PDF of the letter, which I would have digitally scanned beforehand; it's only polite to give people a preview so they're prepared when it arrives. Then I can call them, my yet-unsuspecting and somehow plural friend, and tell them to check their email.

Finally, a few weeks later, I can meet up with them in person and, over lunch or coffee, casually work the letter into conversation. There are many ways to do this naturally. For example: "Interesting you should bring that up. As I mentioned on page four of my last letter, it's a complete toss-up between Helen Keller and the war on terror for biggest urban legend. And we just have to live with that."

As you can probably guess, the only thing more magical than writing letters is receiving them. So the next time you're bored in class, or bored on the job, try tracking down some free paper and writing to someone. The letter doesn't have to be to me; it could be to a friend, or a lover, or yourself. Just as long as it gets mailed to my address, I won't mind.