# Letters Are Still an Option


I sometimes wish I’d grown up in the era of written letters, or that email and
long-form written correspondences were more fashionable than they currently are.
There is something quite enjoyable about sitting down and intentionally writing
to someone, for hours even. The times that I’ve sat down to write something
long-form to a friend, or have received the same, feel qualitatively different
from the accumulation of many shorter messages.

Part of what draws me to letters is the fact that I value high quality writing
-- reading it, writing it, editing it. Writing is a proof-of-thought, that the
author cared enough to sit down and put mental labor into writing something.[^1]
And if that something is emotionally resonant, all the better. There are only so
many hours in the day, and so the fact that someone spent that time writing
something deep _to you_, or you _to them_, adds a level of intentionality that
frequent texts, in my opinion, do not.

More “modern” async communication nudges in the direction of faster, briefer,
more back-and-forth. Admittedly, there’s a time and place for this! In work
contexts, dismayed as I sometimes am about the size of my Slack inbox, it just
would not be feasible to write considered email responses to every inquiry I
receive. I’ve worked in organizations where long-form emails were the default,
and that always felt like a well-meaning but misplaced use of time and
attention.

In the personal domain though, I’m finding I value slower communication. A
slower pace allows you to sit with ideas for a while before responding, and then
respond in sufficient detail that the background thinking time was worth it.
This doesn’t require adopting a distant intellectual tone. Good “slow” writing
can be warm, connecting, and exciting.

Good “fast” personal communication can also be warm, connecting, and exciting,
but it can also carry along with it a sense of “always needing to be available”.
The feeling that at any given time, your phone may buzz and you’ll be liable to
respond to something. Or that you’ll send someone a message, they immediately
respond, and you owe them a quick response. Personally, I find this constant
availability draining, and that I don’t have as much to offer when responding
from a place of “quick response”.

This is all, of course, norms that are partially developed at a global level and
(more importantly) negotiated in each one-on-one relationship. Similar to the
reflection I wrote on
[scheduling recurring calls](/blog/2025/12/01/Schedule-Recurring-Calls-With-Your-Far-Away-Friends/),
slow long-form writing is something that one can propose.

Thankfully, _we have the technology_ in 2025 to distribute text rather easily.
This can look like multi-paragraph iMessages, hand-written letters, writing
5,000 words and attaching it as a PDF via email or text. I suspect I'm not alone
in finding this mode of communication underused -- in fact, I know I'm not,
since I've run into wonderful people who also share this sentiment.

[^1]:
    As of writing in late 2025, it’s still pretty reasonable for the trained
    reader to
    [detect even reasonably concealed AI writing](/blog/2025/01/25/AI-Slop-Suspicion-and-Writing-Back/).
    So, quality writing in any domain -- blogs, work, personal -- stands out
    bold against the backdrop of the developing dark forest of various forms of
    slop.