Humans have been documenting and communicating for thousands of years — from the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to our current systems, immersed in a digital realm. Today, our methods of communication are so vast due to technology — Internet, e-news, social media, text messages, and more. Instant communication has become so widespread that we take for granted how important and powerful the written word is.
My grandparents met in the 1930s and shortly after they were married, my grandfather was off to war. My grandfather passed a few years ago and my grandmother treasures the handwritten letters they wrote to each other while my grandpa was overseas. When communication is written, it makes one’s ideas and feelings more concrete; it makes us think more, and forces us to document those ideas and feelings in that exact time the words were being written. The words of my grandparents’ time could be lost in history or destroyed, but through their written letters and today’s digital technology of preservation they are documented in time — forever.