Is This Progress?

Today's post is from Julia.  Myself and Julia hover on the precipice of "Mummy Blogging" - we are indeed mothers, but our children are older now, we like to think we are wiser and, of course, we are here to share our wisdom.  Julia has this in spades - she is a retired (but not retiring) headteacher  who blogs over at "What Will Julia Do Next" where she shares tales of her life as a headteacher and life now (she also tweets as @JfB57)  Over to Julia...

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I was watching a programme about the First World War & was touched by the recollections of a child of that time. He talked about the last letter his father wrote to his mother. His father was in France dying of his wounds but the letter was bright & up beat. The soldier’s purpose was to leave a positive memory for his wife so that she could carry on after he had gone. Such thoughtfulness on the choice of each word despite being in such pain.

Nearly one hundred years later we are still using the written word to communicate. The wait for the postman is too long now because we crave speed. Email has revolutionized the way we link with each other & has now made our world a very tiny place indeed.

Twitter has taken it to an even greater extreme. We press those little buttons & have our thoughts zinging through the ether. If you’re engaged in a ‘conversation’, tweets cross & before you know where you are, confusion reigns. As the absent owner of this blog mentioned to me ‘Once it’s out there, it’s out there! Is this a safe way to converse? Is this progress from the ‘hand written’ word? 140 characters that have to show intonation, shade as well as meaning. Is that possible? Mistakes can be difficult to rectify.

I’m sure we would all agree that there is nothing like face to face conversation but then again, perhaps there is. What memories would be left for that soldier’s wife had they been able to talk to each other? Perhaps the written word has a place but perhaps we need to add a health warning to the speedy ones.

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If you would like to explore letter writing, why not join the Penpal Club over at Dawn’s blog - The Moiderer