Letters & Legacies
Apr. 7th, 2010 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olde_fashionedI don't quite know what led me to this train of thought, but I've been thinking. People in times past often left letters, journals, and other forms of the written word as one of their legacies. Think Samuel Pepys, or Anne Frank; both of whom are principally known for their diaries.
What are we, the modern and "technological" age, going to leave behind for posterity? Text messages? (OMG SRSLY!) Emails? (dude check out this link!) Chatroom conversations? (he is SOO HOTT!!!1) What happened to the age when people strove for perfection in self expression, dedicated themselves to cultivating excellent penmanship, and endeavoured to write letters not only worth reading, but worth rereading, and worth keeping?
When were we convinced that education (I mean true education, in the sense of the acquisition of knowledge, not that pursuit of a piece of paper from an institution that certifies you as having endured their method of brainwashing), was something not to be striven for, but scoffed at? When did being uninformed, not valuing books, and not caring about one's surroundings become "cool" and "hip" and desirable behaviour?
I write this not because I think I'm so special and I'm getting a kick out of showing everyone else how "special" I am because I'm "different". (That's another cliche I'm sick to death of hearing, about how we're all special because we're different, "only you can be you, and all that nonsense. We're all different from one another -- DUH! Have you ever heard of a fingerprint?) I write this because I'm concerned, and genuinely curious as to when this hand took ahold of the wheel of our civilization and steered us into dangerous waters. Can you see it? I can see it, but I can't trace it back to where it all started. Perhaps it was so gradual a transformation that no one can ever know the exact moment it began to happen, but hopefully, some of us can change this.
Let's bring back letter writing! (Hooray for inkwells and "dippy" pens, heck, even sealing wax and seals!) Let's start keeping journals and diaries! (Hooray for blank leather books!) Let's start expression ourselves intelligently like the beings created in God's image that we are.
It needn't be something devilishly clever, or fabulously well-written like something you'd read in a book (a good book, mind, not that trash which comprises the majority of modern fiction), but something beyond the mindless drivel that most of us, even myself, devote our creativity to.
Practice makes perfect. One small step at a time, let's start writing something worth leaving for posterity. ;-)
What are we, the modern and "technological" age, going to leave behind for posterity? Text messages? (OMG SRSLY!) Emails? (dude check out this link!) Chatroom conversations? (he is SOO HOTT!!!1) What happened to the age when people strove for perfection in self expression, dedicated themselves to cultivating excellent penmanship, and endeavoured to write letters not only worth reading, but worth rereading, and worth keeping?
When were we convinced that education (I mean true education, in the sense of the acquisition of knowledge, not that pursuit of a piece of paper from an institution that certifies you as having endured their method of brainwashing), was something not to be striven for, but scoffed at? When did being uninformed, not valuing books, and not caring about one's surroundings become "cool" and "hip" and desirable behaviour?
I write this not because I think I'm so special and I'm getting a kick out of showing everyone else how "special" I am because I'm "different". (That's another cliche I'm sick to death of hearing, about how we're all special because we're different, "only you can be you, and all that nonsense. We're all different from one another -- DUH! Have you ever heard of a fingerprint?) I write this because I'm concerned, and genuinely curious as to when this hand took ahold of the wheel of our civilization and steered us into dangerous waters. Can you see it? I can see it, but I can't trace it back to where it all started. Perhaps it was so gradual a transformation that no one can ever know the exact moment it began to happen, but hopefully, some of us can change this.
Let's bring back letter writing! (Hooray for inkwells and "dippy" pens, heck, even sealing wax and seals!) Let's start keeping journals and diaries! (Hooray for blank leather books!) Let's start expression ourselves intelligently like the beings created in God's image that we are.
It needn't be something devilishly clever, or fabulously well-written like something you'd read in a book (a good book, mind, not that trash which comprises the majority of modern fiction), but something beyond the mindless drivel that most of us, even myself, devote our creativity to.
Practice makes perfect. One small step at a time, let's start writing something worth leaving for posterity. ;-)
