“Why not then move the paper to the screen?” is what I am sure you are wondering, “why not transcribe our history and make it immortal?” why not indeed? For many things, it is an essential activity lest our literature, our history, and our words slip from our fingers in a blaze or in a bin. But a letter? One’s private correspondence? Their innermost thoughts meant only for the eyes of the privileged? Does it not set your teeth on edge as it does mine? Even when it is not so dire, not their journal entries nor their love notes but their inconsequential scribbles and grocery lists, all laid bare for decades, centuries, millennia removed to study and to gawk - is there not a harrowing feeling brewing in your gut at the voyeurism of it all? When you write a text message or an email, do you consider how in forty, fifty, one hundred years your words may be shown to prospective thousands in a classroom or a library as a window to the early 21st century? Do you consider how your recollection of a messy, drunk night out with friends will reflect upon your society to those with no other conceptions? Of course not! And yet it may still.
