Something for everyone.
I have put considerable thought towards our in class discussion regarding the art of letter writing. I do not like the idea of something that has been around for such a long time to die in the world of digital express media: some things are worth the wait. And some things just need to be written without millions of people with the ability to look at it right away. So when I saw the post named the Fog of Life by the author, MSGT Ken Mahoy, in which he acknowledges that he cannot put his deepest feelings in his blog because people do not want to read them, I was intrigued.
In the post he speaks of frustration because he is so far from home, and misses everyone so much. He yearns for his children and the company of a good friend. He speaks directly to his children at one point, admitting that he is only human, and having a very human moment. He wonders if they every talk about him, if their mother ever mentions his name, he yearns for the life he left. Constantly trying to distract himself from the great distance between himself and his loved ones has taken its toll.
Strangle enough; this is when I realized exactly what blogs allow people to do and what they are. It allows a person to publish their thoughts online for everyone to see. However most blogs are to some extant personal (some more than others) something of a journal online, but most people do not want to read some guys journal full of deep emotions people just do not need any more then they have already got. A good blog, it seems to me, is written in much the same way many of the letters from Since You Went Away where written.
It is a fact that we live in a changing world, it has been changing since it started spinning. Now instead of just writing to someone, it seems that the blog has become a digital letter in a bottle. MSGT Mahoy is stuck on a dessert island, and this is his life line. Will the letter ever die? No, because it has a new home: on line.
I also do not think the classic letter is going anywhere anytime soon; frankly it probably will always have a use. Even in a world as connected as this one, sometimes people just want to speak to one person: not a million.
Filed by whitepe at March 26th, 2008 under Uncategorized
Lupe — April 11, 2008 @ 
“Even in a world as connected as this one, sometimes people just want to speak to one person: not a million.”
I like this statement.
Comparing blogs and hand writing, I think handwritten letters takes much more effort and thought. With blogs, you can always delete and rarely do we put words that have a lot of thought into them. Blogs ar e a tool for us to communicate to others. We don’t think hard about what we write nor do we take the time to think about its effects. Handwritten letters, now that is a different story. Have you ever written a letter to a friend and sent an email to a friend? Which one required you to put more thought, of course the handwritten one because it is irritating when you are erasing and crunching up papers because you have used the wrong verb or the wrong sentence structure.
Now why do I say handwritten letters are more difficult. I have experienced it myself. I write a lot. The words that I use and the idea that I present will probably never be in a blog because they are deep and meaningful. There’s something about using your hands and thoughts at the same time that somehow makes you put more effort than just typing.
Point of the writing, when I write a blog, they are too superficial. Hence, they will not be able to replace handwritten letters.