I think I actually hate technology. My email is down again. Webmail, email, down down down. No LA Times. No NY Times. No spam. Okay, that's a good thing. No greetings from friends. Not a damn thing.
It makes me feel cut off from the world. I'm so spoiled. I remember a time when I used to enjoy going to the mailbox to open real letters, hand-written, slow to come but thoughtful, and personal. One friend and I used to include drawings in our letters. One friend and I used to send each other a postcard every day of the week - we did this for three years, and then I stopped. I stopped.
And today in this overconnected world, when email goes down, I feel cut off and isolated. The anticipation of what?
How do YOU feel when your email is down? And, did you ever love to write a real letter, choose a stamp, and drop it in the mail?
+++++++++++++++++++ UPDATE at 7:53 PM ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Email has returned. After being down all day, it is finally fixed. Yay.
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13 comments:
i still do. believe it or not there are actually people on the planet without email. i know, i know- how can this be? in fact, i just wrote a handwritten 4 page letter last night. i am sure most of the folks i deal with prefer the email to my handwriting- it's horrible :) i know what you mean about a loss when the email or blogger is down though. it is almost like i don't know what to do with myself for a minute. i then remind myself that i spent the first 34 years on the planet without internet and without email. if you have known life before technology- it is easier to deal. i almost feel sorry for the folks who came after me- they don't know anything but.
I haven't written a snail-mail letter in years. It's a shame, really. I saved letters from friends for decades (I would still have them if my ex-husband didn't inadvertently toss that box away). I still send cards to friends and always write something, but it's just not the same. Our email is provided by our ISP. If our internet connection is up, we have email. If our internet is down, we are utterly bereft. No mail, no news, no blogs. The world is silent, except for everything happening outside our windows. Hope you get your email back soon.
I definitely feel cut off without e-mail. To be honest, I wasn't much of a letter-writer before e-mail. I enjoyed getting them, but writing was not my forte. I only began to actually put my thoughts down in a coherent way when I started e-mailing, and then blogging. All the writing you're supposed to do in the program? Didn't do it. Loved to read, hated to write. Until the Internet.
Betmo, yes, I don't know how those kids who've never had a life without electronics function! I haven't written a real letter in so long, but I can make the adjustments.
Robin Andrea, oh, the ISP/Email connection. Isn't it funny though, how dependent we really become?
Alicia, all that program writing? That's a Southern California thing. Back in Chicago, it's the 4th and 8th steps only that get written down, and sometimes the 10th gets written. But writing on the net is so easy - mistakes are easy to correct! Changes easy to make. Still, but.
I also feel disconnected. It makes me sad that we don't write real letters any more. As a teen my bestfriend lived in Fla and I was in NY we would write letters everyweek on special stationary. I even had a holly hobbie/onionhead hobby collection. They look like The little wishes statues. I wonder if girls still collect stationary. Thanks for some memories Divajood
Dawn, my daughter had Holly Hobby things too - not stationary though. Hmmm.
I don't use email as much as I used to. I have greatly simplified my use of the computer all together. My slogan is keep is simple, stupid. The less I depend on it, the less I will miss it if it's gone.
Having been through a major computer crash and losing gobs of stuff I thought I couldn't live without, I make myself not rely on the computer so much.
I used to take great pride in my handwritten letters. Choosing the right stationery and all. I have no idea the last time I wrote or recieved a real letter. It's a shame that has gone away, it was a sweet time. Today I know that all that will be in the mailbox will be ads, bills, and applications for credit cards. I file the bills, toss the ads and spend a few minutes every day shredding the mail instead of having the pleasure of reading it.
Does your email handler have an online site where you can check your email?
POP, the webmail is down too - it's a complete outage with the provider. I've had computer crashes. Also, I used to carry a PDA, and it had a complete meltdown - unrepairable - it even fried my backup component. Lost all my addresses and phone numbers - now I have a good old hand written address book.
Alicia expressed my feeling toward email and blogging. Several outstanding people would not have been met without these tools; you, Alicia, Helen, and others who don't wish to be named.
I received two 'thank you' notes in the mail from people in my neighborhood within the last week, thanking me for buying refrigerator magnets with our neighborhood crime watch phone number to pass out to neighbors. It's a silly thing, maybe, but those notes are meaningful in a way that an email message is not. They took more energy, effort, and time to get to me. But when my email is down, I become aggressive and dangerously surly.
MFM, I agree that the written thank you notes are meaningful - that's the kind of connection I think we lose with all the "internets" - on the other hand, Yoga is right, because it is a tool to meet good people.
When my computer was down for a day I had withdrawals and didn't know what to do with myself. As a result, my home was cleaner than it's ever been. Hmmm....
Helen, that would work if I were at home, but alas, I am at work, so I can't clean.
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