In Praise of Analog
We lost both of my in-laws in the last three months, and have started the difficult process of sorting through their belongings. My mother-in-law was a natural archivist, and there is a huge trove of family memorabilia that we have been slowly working through. It’s both comforting and sad as we look through years of photographs, letters, clippings, and other treasures.
It also reinforces my disquiet with our increasingly digital world. Here in these folders are letters, cards, and notes from friends and family members, many long since gone. Where will the cell phone calls, emails, and instant messages be for future generations to look through?
There is a deeper connection with the materials as well. There are photo albums put together by my wife’s grandfather, going back to his college days one hundred years ago. They have his hand-written notes by each image. When I hold that book in my hands, I touch the pages that he touched. It’s somehow not the same looking at an image on the screen of the computer.
My father-in-law was captured in the fall of the Philippines in World War II, and survived the Bataan Death March. His father kept a spare daily journal, and we have the 1945 volume. Every day after the end of the war in early August he wrote a brief comment, often about waiting for some word about whether his son was still alive. The tone of the comments grew increasingly frustrated as the weeks dragged on with no word. Finally, in late September (six weeks after the end of the war!) he received a telegram from his son in Manila, telling the family he was ok and on the way home.
As I read his joyous words in the journal, I am keenly aware that I hold the very book that he held as he wrote them. Even though he died before my wife was even born, I feel a sense of connection to her grandfather. I will never get that same sense of connection from reading an email.
This isn’t to say that I will stop using email, or weblogging, or instant messaging. I haven’t the will power to stop! What I am going to try to do is more “analog” stuff - cards, notes, and letters. I want to keep clear on the choices I make for communicating, and what I gain or lose through my choices. And I want to make my kids aware of it as well.