lost and loosing?

I am reading a book called the Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peal Pie Society, a novel based on a compilation of hand written correspondence during the second world war. All the while I am reading it, I stop to ask myself, "Have we really advanced thanks to technology?" With the newest and latest always out dating its predecessor, we just might communicate a bit quicker, maybe with more frequency even, but do we really communicate with the lost and loosing art form that we once did? When communicating from a distance required a pen and paper, silence and thought, and of course, time. When our thoughts were slower and more developed, did a hand written letter have more sentimental value? I, speaking from personal experience, find that receiving something in the mail certainly entertains a different kind of excitement than that of opening my electronic email account and seeing it full of small notes and spam.

So then why don't I take the first step, I ask myself, why don't I begin to write more hand written letters, why don't I, become an artist of a loosing art? Well, it isn't efficient, that is for sure, and cost wise, I would only be able to send 10 hand written letters per month for the same cost as having internet, and well, probably more importantly, and certainly selfishly, I want to receive hand written letters too! So in the end, the art is only beautiful if it is reciprocated. Perhaps this is the winning argument to the definition of art: For something to be artistic, it must be a two way street of communication, a reciprocity of the artist's confection and the viewer's reception.

Does anyone remember having a pen pal?