I’ve started listening to Rachel Syme’s book, Syme’s Letter Writing, on audio.
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I’ve started listening to Rachel Syme’s book, Syme’s Letter Writing, on audio. And not only is she a charming narrator, but I do believe she’s written a sort of “manifesto” that I can get behind!
“But letters still serve a vital purpose, which is that they exist to mock the very idea of efficiency. They require slow, gear-crunching effort on both ends, for the writer and for the reader and for the many hands responsible for transporting the envelope in between the two. Letter writing is a time consuming rebuke to a world that tries to optimize every activity into a seamless slipstream, and there is joy to be had once you fully embrace the medium’s outdated extravagance.”
and
“The truth is, nobody has to write letters anymore. We are all hilariously reachable, and yet the last place anyone thinks to find us is inside our mailboxes. Snail mail’s reputation has become that of an intrusive junky nuisance at worst and, at best, a cringy affectation for people who think they are Jane Austen. But what if we just decided to do it anyway?”
This book is speaking to my soul. We’re inundated with “faster & more efficient” all the time, creating “tools" to cram in more and more stuff.
But slow living, unplugging to reconnect… Those are things experiencing a renaissance. People are leaving social media in droves. Maybe it’s okay to sometimes enjoy the process of communication instead of its expediency?
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