The Phone Call Versus The Letter

Written by the maintainer of the Larch website

From years of frustration at the near universal tendency to phone rather than write a letter

	I used to enjoy receiving letters from people back in civilized times when there was a lot of thoughtful self-expression, then once a year or so have a phone call, or initiate one, and renew that way of communicating and enjoy the direct style of the person. In other words, lots of writing, a little phone chat -- a good balance. Nowdays we have virtually no writing, but people have phones stuck in their ears to the point that permanent implants will seem like a good idea. Don't know if I'm old-fashioned, or right-fashioned, but I choose not to be a part of the public babble. It takes time to think, and effort to express thoughts worth expressing, at least for me. And, not a small thing, the emailer or letter-writer can communicate at any time that is convenient, and the recipient responds in the same way -- everybody at ease with the process. But the phone-caller lifts the phone at a time that is almost always inconvenient for the person at the other end. Why? Simple -- people are almost always doing something that interests them, whether it be musing on a whimsical thought, attending personal hygiene, reading a book, eating a meal, working through a set of chores, watching a movie, planning a schedule, etc. We all know that is true, but phone fans intrude anyway, because they think their convenience is more important than the inconvenience of others. They say, "I always ask (or imply) that if I'm calling at an inconvenient time, the callee can say so." Of course that is the case, except a lifetime habit of courtesy and an affection for the caller prevents a crass veracity -- and that is well-known too! Why is phoning replacing writing so fast in terms of the normal rate of social change? My conclusion is that people allow themselves to be controlled by the mass-culture, which is artificially sped-up by hype and spurious busy-ness. People feel busy, though they accomplish less than people did in the past. The common mental attention is now merging in quality with those who have attention-deficit syndrome -- in other words people are losing themselves and gaining a status as part of the public mind. I say to hell with the public mind. Also, people ought to be appalled that they cannot write, cannot express themselves. This is very serious, and is a critical failure of the educational system that people are trained for 12-16 years, but cannot call their thoughts together, cannot think, cannot express themselves, cannot just sit and exist. No, they are always moving away from where they are, always running from...what? Is it the fear they must keep moving or they will fail, fall, die? Of course there is another possibility -- that there is no longer a desire to engage with another person, only a desire to dazzle the other person with one's personal exceptionalness, or, oppositely, to merely be a passive observer of the other person as if a TV show were being viewed. Certainly many phone conversations are like that, a sort of "happening" like the non-art which leaves the art to the inner state of the viewer and which takes no resposibility otherwise. Or perhaps it is this simple: people do not care enough about each other to go to the trouble of writing a letter. After all, to open one's mouth and talk does not necessarily mean that any effort has been gone to whatsoever. Millions of people prove everyday that conscious mental processes are not needed to talk, talk, talk. I repeat that for people who are separated in space, sometimes it is a real pleasure to converse by phone. If this communication had a foundation of routine exchanging of thoughtful letters, the phone conversation would enhance the relationship. Otherwise, phoning is not as useful in the long run because words spoken are mostly forgotten -- they do not live on to be experienced in a more contemplative mood. Written words are artifacts of those who create them -- they have an existence beyond the moment. They are the equivalent of "quality time" in human affairs, that is, with people who are physically together, the "heads-together" quiet chats that enrichen life are like written expression. No one confuses these special times with the normal talk of the day, so it should not be hard to see that writing has a strong tendency to operate on a higher plane than the serendipitous verbal exchange of information. To forgo the pleasures of writing, in the name of busy-ness, is a shame. It is an abandonment of personal existence in favor of endless becoming, as if one were a waterfall, and not the stream that shapes the valley. But we do exist, like oaks, and our chatter is not who we really are. Let us write to our friends and family -- one to one -- and speak in chosen words of the foolishness, the pleasures, the richness, the grandeur of life. In our words there is the source of discovery of ourselves and those for whom we care. ---