A dying art

    When I was younger, in the days when the only form of internet was DARPANet, you contacted people with letters (by hand even!) and occasional phone calls.  Even those phone calls were a rare thing between countries; between states and cities was just expensive enough to be worth careful consideration before engaging in. This lead to constant communication with a choice few, as it took time to write and send a letter, and even more time (on the order of a few days to weeks) for the letter to reach its destination.
    With the knowledge that what you write today would not be read for a while yet, you made sure that each line and word carried the appropriate meaning.  Plus, you were writing which meant that you had to think and consider what you wrote before you wrote it.  Writing letters was considered an art form that took in-school training to do well.
    My, how things have changed. With the advent of e-mail, instant messaging, Facebook, and the like, communication is instant and always within reach.  It now takes considerable and purposeful effort to be out-of-touch.  You can keep up with the minutiae of people's lives, even people you knew for a year of middle school 25 years ago and have never spoken to since!  So much information: what songs they like, what pictures they post, what chickens have hatched an egg, where they are having dinner and with whom...

  And yet I have to ask: of what good is this?  In the days of letter writing, the words held so much meaning as they were all that was had.  If someone wrote you a letter, it was an act of will to have written it.  Now we are so inundated with information that words are cheap, just as much as information.  We yell personal comments across the crowded Face-net where everyone can see and weigh in their opinions, when all we really wanted was to tell our friend we missed their smile.

  I think that so much instant communication cheapens the communication itself until it is no longer worth treasuring.  I see a day coming, that may already have come, when we prefer the mask of instant communication to personal contact.  When we hide behind words and opinions rather than facing people with carefully considered words of truth and love.  The Bible speaks of the quiet words of the wise in Ecclesiastes, and I think we are becoming so busy yelling out, "Pay attention to me!" that we no longer hear the quiet voices of wisdom.  Sit in silence.  Turn off the phone, the tablet, the computer, and talk to your family.  Spend time with your friends.  Savour your time together and remember it in quietude as the days pass.