Comment by ProllyInfamous
2 days ago
>Write letters and send them by post.
Lots of memes/postcards. I also have a part-time secretary (only for scheduling/mailing).
If I need to "sign up" somewhere, I use a burner/temporary email.
Free-est man alive.
That's great and that's what I aspire, but as it's so easy and quick typing and sending a mail I just send it like that. I remember the days before when I hand wrote the occasional letter and delivered it myself or sent it by post.
Would you consider handwriting a letter and then fax2email it also an option, if not why not? Writing a letter can be much more intentional, but the sending process could be automated.
I remember I bought a german book with bundled talks/essays at the Goetheanum bookshop last year about how to relate to the digital revolution. Distracted by the internet I haven't had time yet to read the book. "Das Ende des Menschen? Wege durch und aus dem Transhumanismus" (The End of Man? Ways Through and Out of Transhumanism), edited by Ariane Eichenberg and Christiane Haid.
Often I'll include a stamped postcard, addressed to my PO Box, because I think there is something important about paying for the privilege to communicate with somebody off-line [the stamp]. It forces your message to be more concise/worthwhile.
There is also something sweet about having a built-in delay for the message to "gestate" — perhaps if politically-related, your point is even further reinforced as "prescient," as the pre-dated postmark attests (upon delayed arrival). Perhaps you're wrong and wasted a stamp.
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Mostly I agree with (I believe) P.G.'s premise that email is nothing more than a to-do list that anybody can add on to. I do not wish to ever be immediately reachable, again, and this is an expensive freedom/lifestyle.
I am simply too angry to have access to a system [email] where I can immediately tell anybody in the world how I feel about something [and did for a quarter-century]. If something really bothers me, it has to be worth a postage stamp (I usually write postcards, but also have thousands of FOREVER Stamps™).