In college my grandmother and I exchanged at least one letter a month. I’d share about what I was studying or my friends, and she’d tell me about her life and ideas, and we got to know each other better as adults. I treasured connecting with her in that way, and still have the letters she wrote me.
I also had an extensive email correspondence at the time. A friend recently wrote me to resurface an email I wrote him in 2011:
I’d completely forgotten about this era, where I wrote extremely extra emails. Honestly, I could use more of this energy in my correspondence and my life.
When we traveled in Asia together after I graduated college, my friend Ulysse (then Ben) introduced me to a software program he’d written called Keep in Touch. The idea was to keep a list of people U wanted to stay in touch with, as well as information about when U’d last contacted them. I used it regularly for a few years after that and was able to maintain friendships and connections that otherwise might have gone by the wayside.
Peace Pilgrim is one of my greatest heroes. In addition to walking tens of thousands miles spreading her message of peace, she also maintained an extensive correspondence. The editors of her book say that she “considered it part of her job to reply to all of the thousands of people who wrote to her over the years.” Her mail was one of the few things she carried with her on her pilgrimage, inside the pockets of her tunic.
One of my friend Visa’s heroes is Erasmus, the 16th century Dutch humanist, theologian and philosopher. Visa describes Erasmus as “one of the most prolific men of letters in the 1500’s, corresponding with literally hundreds of people,” including Pope Adrian VI, Pope Leo X, Henry VIII. “Why did Erasmus correspond with hundreds of people?” Visa asks. “BECAUSE HE COULD!!!”
Visa describes his goal in life as “being the Erasmus and/or Mersenne of Nerd Twitter, and the broader (Friendly Ambitious) Nerd Internet.”
Erasmus, Mersenne, and Peace Pilgrim didn’t live in the time of the internet, but Visa, U, and I do. The internet makes it possible to correspond with anyone else with a connection—something like two thirds of the planet’s human population.
For me, corresponding through text messages, voice mail, email etc. is load-bearing in my friendships, since I am not based anywhere, and all of my friendships are remote / long-distance most of the time.
Internet friendships are a novel form of connection historically speaking, but they’re very fulfilling for me personally! The friends that I’ve met online are so interesting to learn more about and enjoyable to spend time with! Having continued online contact gives me more context on who someone is and what they care about than I would otherwise be exposed to e.g. if I just met someone at a party or something like that.
It’s also invaluable to me to correspond with people for “professional” reasons, too. My work in the world is intimately connected to having a large social graph and context about what a lot of different people are doing.
The capacity to correspond with friends, acquaintances, collaborators and peers affords all of us tremendous power.
Relationships can grow in depth, meaning, joy, and benefit over years and decades, and correspondence makes it possible to begin, maintain, and deepen a large number of relationships over time.
That said, pretty much everyone I know increasingly has more messages and platforms to keep track of than they feel totally at ease handling. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed, or to miss responding to an important message or an old friend.
Here are some tips that have helped me to keep up correspondences with friends around the world:
- following them on social media, keeping an eye on what they’re up to, engaging with what they post if I want to
- sending a message when I think of them
- sharing tweets or videos or music etc. that I think they’d enjoy
- phone and/or video calls when we both want to (different rhythms for different friendships)
- corresponding about specific topics that I enjoy talking about with them
- collaborating on projects if desired
- seeing them in person when possible
- trusting that established shared context exists even when we aren’t in touch for an extended period of time, and the friendship can be picked up in its own season
Short messages are ok! Like “yes!” or “nope” or “thinking of U!” Or my friend Nvpkp’s “smooch”:
smooch doctrine: sending the word “smooch” to a friend when they come to mind, in order to bypass the hesitation that comes from not having anything to say, really. in the worldview of believing in brotherly love and affection.
It’s also ok to send a late reply… even very late! Like years later! U can just… resume an old correspondence with an old internet friend. I promise Ur friend will be happy to hear from U!
And if U are receiving a late reply from someone—an easy grace goes a long way!
Practically, I really love replying to messages while walking, or in bed after waking up. Find what works for U.
Something about online correspondence that is difficult to intuitively grasp, is that U have the option to be bare-metal synchronous or weeks-late asynchronous in ur messages. U have the power to decide.
Different contexts will call for different speeds and paces. U are dancing with Ur friends and collaborators, learning what rhythm and pace feels mutually good. U can feel out what feels good and safe and connecting in any given relationship or context.
U should never apologize for meeting Ur needs in learning to dance with Ur friends. U can move fluidly between modes as much as U need to. People who love U and truly care about U will be happy to hear from U whenever it feels good for U.
In a collaborative context, it’s helpful to name preferences and mutually agree on, be willing to renegotiate shared expectations (rather than implicitly adopting indirect imposed ones).
Some things can be synchronous, others can be asynchronous—deep connection in any context benefit from both!
May U enjoy connecting with friends around the world! May Ur correspondences bring U great joy! May they serve Ur curiosity and the world as a whole!
This post is an excerpt of my book, The Path of Curiosity.
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