The Letter
August, 2011
A few days ago, looking for some papers, I found a letter that my mother wrote to me. She had written it a few months after I had moved to the USA. It was a four page letter with loving thoughts that were characteristic of my mother. The letter not only triggered memories for me, but another thought came to mind. Does anyone write or receive letters anymore? An era of receiving letters ended with her passing.
People can find or get in touch with me in several ways: letter by mail, phone, e-mail, fax, my website, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Linked-In, Twitter, Plaxo, hi-5, etc., just to name a few!Practically every week I receive’d an invitation to join more social network sites. Just the other day, for my own curiosity, I Googled my name,and it resulted in over half a million entries… 507,000 to be exact! I’m quite busy, but I do my best to answer all the e-mails from my personal address and website. I also try to respond to all the kind and wonderful comments I received from my YouTube videos. Not a day goes by that I don’t have to respond to questions and comments from my sites. I tweet every day, and I try to write something fun or interesting on Facebook as often as possible. I have over 1,000 connections on Linked-In, but I wonder if it’s going to make a difference in my career as a pianist. Are we more or less connected with all the modern social networks available to us? To me, there was nothing more personal than getting a letter from my parents or a phone call from my family. Nowadays, the only letters that I get are from an elderly friend that I shall call Mrs. M. She writes a few letters a year, and not only to me but to all her friends. She is going to be 91 in a few weeks, so I guess she is one of the last ones from the bygone era of letter writing.
Although I miss receiving hand-written letters from friends and family by mail, I do appreciate the many great conveniences created by today’s technological advancements. From my computer, I can assess the amount of people from all over the world who visit my website. It’s just amazing to know that people from Hong Kong, Chile, Greece, Ukraine, Slovenia, Israel, India, Morocco, Hungary, China, Vietnam, Turkey, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Portugal, just to name a few, have visited my website. I receive comments about my videos from people all over the world. A few years ago, it would have been practically impossible for my music to reach people from around the globe. The Internet and social networking sites have been quite helpful to my career. I’ve heard on the radio and have read about the financial world when experts in the field talk about keeping up with the global markets. If I don’t join that train, I’m going to be left alone at the station.
I spend approximately 2 hours every day on the computer managing my business. A few years ago, I used to spend that amount of time at my piano trying new pieces or playing my favorite music just for the pleasure of it.
I’ll go back and read my mother’s letter one more time or perhaps a few more times. It is not only a reminder of life with my parents were alive physically speaking, as they are very much alive in my heart, but also a reminder of what I perceive as being more gentle, less hurry, slower times. When I was a little boy, the mailman would arrive with one or more letters, and it gave me a nice sense of excitement. Every day I receive lots of junk mail, bills, and tons of solicitations for donations but never a letter, unless it’s from Mrs. M. Many years ago, when I moved to the USA, I began supporting a few charities that were close to my heart. As the years went by, I have added more charities to my list, because the requests for monetary help from new charities are daily and never ending. Most of those”letters” with the ubiquitous presence of a sad looking child or elderly person on the cover have created a Pavlovian effect in my psyche prompting me to send a check. I guess they know what they’re doing. It reminds me of when I’m at the mall having an ice blended coffee, and I see one of the food retailers giving away samples of their product. By some sort of unexplainable reason, one teenager tries a sample, and a few seconds later every teen in the mall is there finishing up the samples faster than you can say “free food”. How does that happen? How do they tell all the other teens in the mall about the free samples? If you have an answer, please let me know.
I hope that some of you have had the pleasure of getting a letter in the mail from a loved one. There is something unique about hand writing a letter, affixing a stamp, and sending thoughts to someone dear to you. If you don’t get a letter this year, then write a letter to yourself. You won’t have to deal with a rejection.
I welcome your comments,
Sincerely yours,
Antonio Castillo de la Gala
22 Comments
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