The Art of Letter Writing
Take up a pen and begin to scratch out words. Perhaps it takes a moment for the words to come. Perhaps every word is tortured out of you. Perhaps they flow fast and easy like the ink from your pen. But whatever you do, write.
In an age of instant communication, you may wonder what good there is in writing letters to send through the post. I mean, you can send an email, a text, or some other kind of instant message, have it received the moment you send it, and receive an instantaneous response. And what with the fear of being left “on read” why put yourself through the anxiety of waiting days, possibly weeks or months before receiving a response?
And then there’s the act of writing it. If you would do as I suggest, you would write with a pen, not type out your letter. What’s more, I would tell you to write in cursive. But who can read cursive anymore? And the hand cramps from writing it all out by hand, forget it. And don’t even get you started on the cost of stamps, a whole $0.68 now. I can still remember when they only cost $0.49!
Yet, I not only think sending letters worthwhile, I still do it myself. Just yesterday, I sat down and collected all the letters I still have. The vast majority of them come from a single friend. We met at a conference in Oxford in 2013, having messaged each other online before that, and became fast friends. Then, in 2014, we started writing letters to one another. For ten years we have kept up that correspondence.
We have always written by hand to on another. On the one hand (pun slightly intended) it is certainly more personal. A typed letter could come from anyone, but you get to know someone through their handwriting. But it’s deeper than that.
I can no longer remember when I was first introduced to this distinction, but somewhere over the years I learned to distinguish between a tool and a machine like this: A tool is an extension of yourself. It takes a natural ability you have and enhances it. A hammer is an extension of our ability to strike things. A wrench, to turn them. You are still intimately involved in the action. A machine, on the other hand, separates the human from the action. A car may be an “extension” of my ability to move, but since I don’t drive a car like the Flintstones, I don’t move myself forward as I cause the car to move. Then engine does that work for me.
Now, despite some joking claims in my younger days to the contrary, I am not a luddite. I do not desire to take my mighty hammer, Ezekiel, and smash all machines. Some likely should be smashed, but not by me with a hammer. Machines can be good and helpful, but we need to recognize their limits and any potential drawbacks to their use. For instance, have you ever wondered why it’s so much easier for people to be mean on the internet? It isn’t just the anonymity either. People will put their full name and even a picture next to the harsh criticisms they’d never make in person. It’s because computers aren’t, in this technical sense, tools. They’re machines. The give us separation between ourselves and our acts.
This is why I handwrite my letters. When I take up the pen and scratch away on a piece of paper, it is as though I’m putting a little bit of myself, a little bit of my soul, onto the paper and then sealing it up and sending it to the other person. What’s more, because I write with a pen that means I can only do one of two things when I make a mistake: I can start over or I can scratch it out, leave the imperfection, and move on, knowing the other person will see it, will see that I made a mistake. That’s a level of vulnerability we balk at digitally. Even Twitter (I refuse to call it X) has added an ability to edit a post within an hour of posting it. We cannot abide appearing imperfect, writing by hand will either cure you of that or drive you mad.
It’s easy to romanticize letter writing. And as much as I like reading collections of letters, it is always important to remember that many times letter writers hated writing letters (C.S. Lewis was both a notorious hater of writing letters and a dedicated correspondent). What we can do for fun was once the only way to communicate with those far away from us. But what this means is that our letters can instantly go deeper. When you can text a person about a promotion or other life change, you don’t need to communicate that simple fact by letter. But you can take the time to spell out how you’re feeling, to sit and put thought into the words you choose. While he was no fan of writing letters (and in fact typed, or had his brother type, most of them), C.S. Lewis talked about drafting stories and essays by hand. The necessary pause of a dip pen to re-ink it required the writer to stop and think about what they had written thus far. While I am drafting this in Substack, I think Lewis is right. Writing with any kind of pen will require stopping, even mid thought. Maybe the pen isn’t writing correctly, maybe you ran out of paper, maybe your hand is cramping. All these forced stops provide opportunities to reflect.
So, consider taking up pen and paper this week and sending a letter to someone dear to you. Maybe there’s an old college friend you keep track of on facebook, but want to reconnect with, send them a letter. Maybe there’s an old flame you’d like to rekindle and talking in person is terrifying but texting seems too casual, send them a love letter. Maybe there’s someone you’re mad at or whose mad at you and you want to offer them an olive branch, send them a letter. Maybe you just want to tell your spouse you love them in a unique way, send them a letter. Maybe there’s an author whose work has moved you, send them a letter and tell them that. You can always send it courtesy of their publisher. That’s how I once got a letter back from C.S. Lewis’s step-son, Douglas Gresham. Find a reason and write a letter. Leave something more than emails and memes and gifs behind for people to remember you by.
Write a letter.