The Lost Art of Letter Writing

By: Kenzie Gibson

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The blue light of someone’s smartphone causes me to hurry. Our thoughts on a screen fly fast and are often deleted as quickly as we type them. We are so swift to send one message or the other, without actually bothering our ass as to what comes out of his mouth. But then you take a seat with the blank sheet of paper and pen. There is no undo key to correct your mistakes, just the sound of your hand dragging along on paper. Sending a letter out serves as a reminder that we need to slow down.. In texts to each other, we don’t always say what we mean. The ease of the delete key often strips our digital conversations of their soul; we edit ourselves into a state of perfection that feels empty. We live in a cycle of instant reactions, treating communication like a sprint rather than a connection. Handwriting, however, forces a pause. It requires the writer to sit with their thoughts, knowing that every letter is permanent. Beyond the words themselves, a letter possesses a physical presence that a phone cannot provide. A text is a temporary arrangement of pixels, but a letter is an object you can hold. a physical manifestation of the time you spent. These letters become anchors in a desk drawer, waiting to be rediscovered years later. In a world defined by convenience, choosing the slow method of pen and paper is a powerful statement. It suggests that the person is worth more than a quick notification; they are worth the weight of a memory they can actually hold.