can we go back to handwriting letters and sending them through snailmail?

The following thoughts were inspired by this, which I discovered by way of my new friend Carlos, whom I met through my former-acquaintance-turned-friend Aaron.

And that there, my dearies, is what we call 'networking.' But that's not what I'm writing about in this blopgost. What I'm writing about is communication overload.

How much is too much? How many is too many? Every day, most of us receive at least one electronic message--be it email, text message, or something relating to Facebook--that requires some sort of written follow-up. Some sort of written response. And some of us take an inordinate amount of time to make that necessary (I'm not saying 'required') response.

Why? Why is it so hard to hit 'reply' and type something? Why do we take so long to answer? One message per day isn't a lot, right?

What about 365 messages per year?

Some of you--and here I'm talking to my fellow old folks--will recall the days before email. No, really, such days did exist. They're dim and foggy in my memory, but I swear they really happened. In those days, the riotous heydays of my youth, I received about...oh, let's take a guess on the high side...20 hand- or type-written letters per year that required a hand- or type-written reply. Add to that various greeting cards for holidays and birthday, etc etc, and that number goes up to maybe 50. Maybe. Per year.

So, flash forward (and no, I'm not making a TV reference) to today. If I get one response-required message per day, I'm no longer at 50 per year, I'm at 365.

But I don't get one response-required message per day.

I get an average of 5.

That's 1825 messages per year. And each one requires a response. If I spend only half an hour answering each one, I will spend 38 twenty-four-hour days (24! Count dem! 24 hours! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhhhh!) out of every year doing nothing but answer messages. That's more than one month per year.

In the inbox of the email account Ed and I use jointly, there are currently 7576 emails. Of these, 667 are unread. I have no idea how many are unanswered. Most times, I feel like closing that account completely and starting from scratch. Except I know that eventually, the new account will look exactly the same, and I'll end up exactly where I am now with all this, which is:

frustrated
overwhelmed
angry with myself
and disappointed in myself, because I know some of those unanswered messages came from people who are disappointed in me for not answering.

I also have this continual, grand plan to answer all the comments I've received on this blog. Haven't been able to get that done, either--and every time I think about it, I feel a painful twinge in the center of my brain.

That twinge is one part irritation and three parts guilt.

At what point is it too much?

I'm so tired of communications-inspired guilt that I'm just tired.

I know 100% for sugar-torting certain I'm not alone in this. How do *you* handle the odious monster guilt blob masquerading as your inbox?

hey programmers, two technical questions for ya

Edit: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a toolbar. I repeat, we have a toolbar. Thanks, Aaron!!!
14:44pm

1. How do I get the Blogger toolbar back? (Toolbar has search function and "next blog" option, etc.) I used to have it, but when I changed blog templates, it disappeared. If you'll tell me where to find the toolbar code and where it goes in the template code, I can probably fix it myself. If I can't, I'll ask. :o)

2. What would need to be done to set up a reply-to-comments function on Blogger?


Thanks! I give you all virtual chocolate.

i'm going to try to answer all comments soon

I know I don't have to, nobody's making me, yadda yadda, but I want to. I just haven't done it yet.

You get multiple chocolate chip cookies if you know why all the tags below are relevant. ;o)

catching up

So, in a shell of nut, the posts that follow are some of the things I've been thinking about recently but haven't had time to write about. These aren't the only things; I have a whole list of items to check off; a plethora of topics, if you will (or even if you won't); but these will do nicely for starting my catching-up. So here ya go. ;o)

Will try to answer comments soon.

lotsa update-type-stuff

Did you know that on a 4-year-old laptop, it takes more than three hours to zip-compress 5.1 GB of digital pictures? I didn't know that until I started the process more than three hours ago. I store every current year's digital pics on my external hard drive. At the end of every year, I move the pics from the hard drive to a DVD, thereby freeing up hard drive space. This year, I'm a bit behind. I only just got around to working with year 2006 pics this morning. And now the eternal wait for compression. I can't believe that in one year, I took more digital pictures than can fit onto a 4.7 GB DVD-R. Good grief.

By the way, the laptop's name is Frodo. The external hard drive's name is Andromeda.

I really don't have much of a purpose in writing this current blogpost (or "blopgost" as I like to call them), except for the fact that I know I haven't blogged anything in a few weeks, and I'm waiting waiting waiting for Andromeda to do her thing.

Here's something funny: My mom brought me a box of old letters that I had saved. In it was a card from Susan Morris, who worked with the Chemnitz church with the Sullivans in the mid '90s. This was before I'd ever even heard of Chemnitz, and I certainly had no clue who the Sullivans were. Susan came to visit the church in Frankfurt in late 1994 or early 1995, when I was 17 years old. I met her briefly, and I vaguely remember speaking with her. Now, twelve years later, I re-read a card she sent to my mom. I never even suspected that one day, I would be living and working where she lived and worked. When I first saw the card again, I was amused by it but decided to toss it with the rest of the old letters. But now I've changed my mind. I'm going to stick it in my journal and keep it as a reminder of how God's plans are so much different from and so much more fulfilling than my own. It's funny and fascinating how he works out my life.

Pippin is lying next me, asleep, curled up into a ball, and snoring.

I am currently possessed of a grand sense of accomplishment. For four years, I have been working on a series of Bible lessons on some of the basics of Christian life and faith. (These are lessons that my friend James asked me to write once-upon-a-time. So even though I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to study them with him, I at least have him to thank for putting the idea into my head.) The lessons themselves, barring revisions, have been finished for a long time. But for over a year now (or two years? can't remember), I've been working on a Teacher's Guide for these lessons. Yesterday, in a thrilling flurry of hunt-and-peck typing, I finally finished the Teacher's Guide! The lessons themselves cover more than 100 pages, and the Teacher's Guide is 178 pages long. I still want to write intros to the Lessons and to the Guide, but other than that and minor revisions, I am done!!! YAY!!!!!! Several people have shown interest in using the lessons as material for their own one-on-one Bible studies, so I'm glad that something I've written can be of service to someone. If even one person can make use of the lessons, then all my time and effort was well worth it. :o)

In other news, I know I'm severely behind in answering comments. I'll get to that as soon as I reasonably can. Dear Commenting Readers, I haven't forgotten you!

And just FYI, in the time it has taken me to write this post, the zip-compression still hasn't finished. The wait continues...

minor stuff; Dream #93 in online translator mode

Long day of researching, I'm tired, I will try to answer all newest comments as soon as possible, I'm sorry for this run-on sentence; and in the meantime, here's a fun something that I wrote as a draft awhile back but didn't publish; enjoy:

Dream #93

I Rejoice Me Just, That The House Not Burned Down

recorded June 21, 2006

Once at night about several weeks, dream I can recollect is not finished with someone, a cigarette lighting, and I could smell in a smoke. Then the dream came to an end, and I woke up, but I could smell in a smoke. I lay there since the several moments, convinced, that the smell was prolongation of dream and would disappear at any moment. Some moments went, but the smell did not dissipate. I was declined and shook awake Ed. " Ed! Whether you Smell in a smoke? I smell in a smoke!"

I heard it, in a gloom smelling. Then it spoke, "Is not present, I not smell in what. Come back to sleep. " And it again rolled to itself.

I understood, that now I also could not smell on it more. I laid down again, already in a dream receding, hoping, that Ed really had no also our apartment on fire was. But until then I have lowered already too far back to a dream to rise and check things.