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| image via NYT |
Yesterday, as part of my habitual Sunday morning routine, I scoured the newspaper for its essays that I wish I'd written. You know that feeling? I came across this piece -- written by pilot/writer, Mark Vanhoenacker -- regarding the endearing form of friendship that is the Pen Pal. Vanhoenacker detail's the personal growth he shared intimately with never-met-until-recently best friend, Emma.
While reading, I couldn't help but ask if the pen and paper Pen Pal was effectively more romantic and meaningful than its technological equivalent. People may speak online, but does it at all embody the respect or depth that the physical copy still owns? If anything, the sheer time investment of the antiquated mode of communication might be leg up enough in the breadth of comparing such similar/not-so-similar endeavors. At any rate, I was just really, really happy to read that there's a new crop of children taking on the task of keeping in touch with a stranger. It's a nice paradox, isn't it? To know so much about someone, yet then again nothing at all. In my opinion, I don't think that has exactly translated unto the internet-derived relationships just yet, but maybe we can all relish in the fact that there are still ways to make this vast, beating planet a little less foreign.
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