Old Documents/Old Thinking

 

I have boxes of music sketches, scores, correspondence and other miscellanies, most done before I had a computer. I am amazed how productive I was with paper and pencil.

When I read letters by artists and scientists pre-computers, I wonder who writes, speaks or even thinks like that anymore?

To wit, (the only known) love letter written by Cezanne:

"I saw you, and you let me kiss you, from that moment I have had no peace from profound turmoil. You will forgive the liberty that a soul tormented by anxiety takes in writing to you...."

Can you imagine this in an e-mail or text message?

Computers have in many ways made us less sympathetic. There is really something to avoiding computers sometimes.

When I go back and look at writings from the past, I realize what I have now forgotten how to do was pretty good technology, and why are we changing it so rapidly? In the process, we have forgotten how to be other things that the old technologies made possible. And the process of forgetting continues on. In a hundred years, writing text messages will seem quaint.