Writing still a better way to send messages<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): \"I've just talked to the minister!\"<\/p>\n
\"Aw, c'mon, just change his diaper.\"<\/p>\n
\"Put it in the frying pan and don't forget to add some salt.\"<\/p>\n
Those odd snatches of conversation were overheard in front of
\nthe rest rooms at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport; the first
\npoint where the owners of cellular phones can conveniently
\nsatisfy the urge to talk after a long flight.<\/p>\n
The existence of cellular phones has made it easy for people
\nto talk to one another. Now that little black box is stuck to
\none's ear almost everywhere because people need to talk all the
\ntime. I didn't really know how important it was to talk until I
\nrecently sat in the waiting room of a dentist.<\/p>\n
The room was so noisy that I felt like it was a dealing room
\nof the Jakarta Stock Exchange. A businessman was yelling at his
\nmanager, calling him names; a middle-aged woman was shrieking
\ncoquettishly; and a young man sitting next to me kept telling his
\ngirlfriend how nice she was and how much he loved her.<\/p>\n
My, if only that young man had put his words into writing, he
\ncould have made a beautiful letter that his girlfriend would put
\nin a beautiful frame and keep all her life.<\/p>\n
I left the waiting room with my untreated toothache, wondering
\nwhat was happening to people nowadays. It seems there is nothing
\nthey do but talk (This, mind you, had nothing to do with the
\ntalks during the campaign for the general election.)<\/p>\n
\"People don't write letters any more,\" complained a social
\nobserver. \"Letters will soon become antiques.\"<\/p>\n
I can't agree more. I am an ancient type of person who enjoys
\nreading letters and keeping them for future rereading.<\/p>\n
I once persuaded my oldest son, who lives in Ujungpandang, to
\nwrite us a letter instead of calling. Sure enough, his letter
\ncame three months later. And, the content was not more than six
\nsentences. That's apparently what he could have said in an hour-
\nlong phone call!<\/p>\n
\"Why should I bother to write if a simple phone call can
\ndeliver the message better,\" he reasoned when I complained about
\nhis \"telegram\".<\/p>\n
\"Writing will become an extinct activity in the next two
\ngenerations,\" said a sociologist.<\/p>\n
\"The trouble is,\" said a senior high school teacher who always
\nfinds it hard to encourage his students to write, \"communication
\nnowadays is so easy that writing a letter is deemed impractical.\"<\/p>\n
Whatever the reason, I still believe that writing is a better
\nway of delivering a message. By writing, there are always
\npossibilities to correct errors. But once words are blurted out,
\nyou can't change them.<\/p>\n
When I first fell in love, I always wrote letters to my
\ngirlfriend. Each time, I put the letter in a match box carefully
\nstuck to her yard fence. The answer came in the same matchbox,
\nstuck at the same place. We hardly talked because, in my day, it
\nwas not \"polite\" for a young man to talk to a girl. When we
\neventually got married, we had a stack of letters that could have
\nmade a best-selling novel.<\/p>\n
Now, young people do not have to use match boxes to send
\nletters to their lovers. Everything is convenient when it comes
\nto sending letters. They can even send them through the hi-tech
\ne-mail. Unfortunately, they do not write.<\/p>\n
Writing can also prevent damage to a relationship. I once read
\nAbraham Lincoln's tips on how not to lose friends. One of them
\nis: \"If you are angry at somebody, put your abuse in a letter. It
\ndoes you good. But, keep the letter for yourself.\"<\/p>\n
What Abe meant was, you will feel better after writing a nasty
\nletter to vent your anger. This way, you don't have to hurt
\nanybody. And if, later, you need to talk to the person you are
\nangry with, you can do it in a better atmosphere. You'll even
\nlaugh at the letter you've written.<\/p>\n
My experience has proven that what Abe said is right.<\/p>\n
I once lost a good friend because of an impulse, yelling into
\na cellular phone in the middle of a heavily congested Jakarta
\nroad. Of course, you don't have to stop using telephones. All you
\nneed to do is get rid of the (darn) cellular phone if you are not
\nin a good mood. And, start writing before this activity becomes
\nobsolete!<\/p>\n
-- Carl Chairul<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/writing-still-a-better-way-to-send-messages-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }