THERE’S WRITING AND THERE’S "WRITING"

I’ve always thought that I wrote better than I spoke. I felt that I could express myself better in writing than in speaking. I'd like to think that I'm still that way.

One day, I was cleaning my room and I cam across a few boxes in a chest. When I opened them, I found piles and piles of old letters, some dating back to when I was still in grade school. Reading a few, I realized how personal these letters were. Maybe it had something to do with the fact they were handwritten, I don’t know. But I felt that the person put something of himself or herself in it.

People correspond through email and text messages nowadays. And for me, it’s always been difficult to gauge one’s feelings through these media. Despite the emoticons that you can input in the message, it does not really display the true feelings. But somehow, if something is handwritten, you can feel something. I miss this feeling. People are too “tamad” nowadays to properly convey their feelings. I guess with the way things are in the world, people seem to be more protective of their feelings coz everything else is pretty much out in the open, or can be out in the open. Their feelings are the only thing that they have any control over.

While I see the advantages to using these electronic means, it doesn’t quite have the same panache as the handwritten means. I guess I’m still a traditional girl in this sense. I prefer handwritten letters to emails. I prefer real books to e-books. Somehow, I feel that a written work loses something in its translation into an electronic version.