Sending No Letters

Shall I pronounce the death of one of the oldest and best communications ever devised by humans- the letter. I may as well, for today we communicate in other ways, by E mail, phone, or video conference. The personal letter is dying, and it is a shame.
Having said that, I confess to being guilty of not writing letters anymore. E mail is my favorite means of communication now. The drawers of envelopes and writing pads are gathering dust for me too. I don't seem to write letters any more. Sure E mail is great. It has many advantages over letters. It's faster, immediate, and much easier to compose that sitting at a desk and writing one's thought sin a letter.
Thoughts! That's what we lose when we use other communication means instead of letters. You see a letter is a tangible thing we can hold in our hand, look at, feel. Those others communications seem less thoughtful, almost hurried in tone. I think writing a letter makes us more serious about the communication, more thoughtful. The memories that other mediums like pictures, E mail, a phone call and souvenirs provide are good ones too.
But they are less personal because in creating them the sender did not put as much thought and effort into the product. I have no letters from you, and I know you wouldn't; "have the time to write" one. Because we are conditioned now to immediacy and ease in communication.
But if I did, it would be put away for a keepsake, not deleted from a computer as all my E mail eventually is. Even a note scribbled on a Christmas card is a more dear means of contact, though it provides only a glimpse of the person's "thoughts" that are contained in the more involved hand-written letter. Don't we all feel closer to some historical character when we read a person letter they wrote? It works the same way with the rest of us too.
So no matter how long we keep in touch by other means of communication, without that hand scribbled letter there is always something missing in a relationship absent of personal letters.. It's the thoughts that were never expressed in black and white.
Sigh..I doubt all the kings men at Microsoft would understand, but I hope you do and will write someone you care about a real letter today. The Swiss are pulling out all stops this year to entice some of the tourists who headed this summer to the world cup finals in nearby Germany. If like me, you couldn't care less about soccer, the Switzerland has an even better attraction for the female crowds that dirty stadiums and boring soccer matches.
Instead, it's offering an alternative of "beefcake" You see, a Cow milking "Mr Switzerland" and other muscular and handsome men are now being featured in an advertising campaign that seeks to entice the ladies who those soccer fans drag to world cup games. "Dear girls", says one TV ad that is beamed to several other European countries. "Why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football, and more time on you?" Mr. Switzerland, Renzo Blumenthal, san shirt is then shown milking a cow and smiling. Sigh...what a choice for soccer hating men. Mr Switzerland or soccer.. Blah...I am glad I just stayed home and wrote this mess.