Christmas Cards

Ever since we've got all the computer technology, and ever since we've become more technologically advanced, I've been getting less and less postcards. "We", in this context, are these lonely people from this lonely and amazing planet, a species that has become proud of all advancements that we have achieved.

There has been this great digital divide that has produced uber lazy humans. They want to do everything just by "clicking" once or twice, without much thinking. They hide behind their desktops, laptops, netbooks, playbooks and who knows how are all these other new devices called.

We've become amused to death again, 26 years after Neil Postman said that in his book, this time we've become stupefied to death.

Where are the interesting questions? They are gone too - beside postcards and Christmas cards extinction, questions became extinct too - nobody is asking interesting questions anymore. That means there are no interesting answers. Or better to say there are no answers at all. Everybody asks questions that they can "google", and after they click once in their browser they'll get their answers. That's why I challenge everyone to ask me a question I cannot google, or to be more precise, to ask me an interesting question that Google won't answer well. When I ask humans this question about asking this interesting question, I usually get a smile, and a bit of confusion, and than a question:"How am I going to ask you that??"

Uber lazy humans stopped thinking and all what is left are mediocre questions. OK, to be fair, in many instances I am one of these uber lazy humans, as I use google algorithms to get what I need. This is about being effective and efficient.

Still, I send my postcards and my Christmas cards. Every time when I am travelling I look for postcards, I buy them, I write couple of sentences there and send them to humans that matter to me. I love them deeply because if they were not there, I wouldn't have anyone to send those postcards.

And then, sometime in every November, I go and buy Christmas cards. I choose them carefully, some of them only have 'holiday' greeting, as some of people I love don't celebrate Christmas. I buy the cards, and I feel them in my hands - they are tangible, they have their weight, texture, scent...They are alive, they are more than sets of zeros and ones. Later at home, I write to people I love. I write couple of sentences to each one of them - I always want them to know that I think about them and that I am thankful that I can write to them.

Since I started doing this, and that was a long time ago, the number of Christmas cards I write to people I love every year is smaller. Some of people I loved left this lonely and amazing world, and their addresses were not reachable anymore. Certainly there were other new people who I started loving in the meantime. I hope there will be more new people I love than people who leave.

All of their addresses are written in my brain. I remember them all. When I write the addresses on the postcards, it feels as I am there, at their far destinations. I see their faces too, people that I love, and I always imagine how their faces will look like when they get my postcards and my Christmas cards. It will be something different, not that advanced, I know, and perhaps they'll have to abandon their digital gadgets for a little bit to read couple of sentences written by a real pen, with a real hand, that come from a real heart.

People ask me why I write my postcards and my Christmas cards. I say:"If you could take my youth and hold it in your hand...you would understand".

(At the end I want to pay a tribute to humans who are not lazy and who are aware. You know who these people are).