Before I graduated, I spent some time deciding what to do with my considerable post-college free time. I was going to have about ten extra hours a week, not to mention the lack of stress and worry about homework, assigned reading, and papers that had hung continually over my head and put a pall on all non-work activities. I would be free to do whatever I wanted, and while reading a biography about Theodore Roosevelt, I realized that I wanted to build relationships with people.
Specifically, I wanted to write letters. There are a few friends who write me regularly but to whom I always fail to reply, and I want to fix that. I also want to write to strangers and start having pen pals, and I thought it would be swell to write to people out in the world about important things. If I have an author I like, or whose ideas I find intriguing, or for whom I have questions, I’m going to write them a letter. If there is something going on in the world, I might write churches or leaders in the area to encourage them. All the things that are becoming commonplace through email and Facebook, but which don’t seem to happen in any real depth (at least for me), I want to do with paper and ink.