When We Were Pen Pals

Turns out my doctor’s a real person. I spotted him at a local coffee shop today. As in, somewhere other than the doctor's office.

Sitting at a table near the back and reading my book, I felt someone gazing at me. Looking up, I saw a familiar man with blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair passing by. But it took me a second to recognize the rest of his face without the usual N-95 mask that covers its lower half. That’s also when I realized he wasn’t alone—he was carrying his son on his back.

The interaction was brief. He just barely slowed down, but he lingered long enough to tilt his head and give me a subtle smile before getting in line at the register. Maybe he was respecting HIPAA by not saying anything, but the nod was enough. You can actually say a lot with a nod. Even so, I almost didn't notice him. And I'm sure he'd have just walked on by while I kept reading my book.

Most interactions are brief. I know I rarely pay much attention moving from A to B, and it seems like that's the case for a lot of other people, too. So what is it that makes these small moments stand out to us?

This whole thing's a bit topical, because I'm reading about attention to detail in The Artist's Way. Apparently the author, Julia Cameron, spent decades as pen pals with her grandmother, and that's where she discovered the power of paying attention to the little things. Julia said her grandmother painted vivid scenes from the seemingly mundane—a family of birds in the garden, the color of blooming flowers, grandpa's irritability. It makes me think of the captivating way my own grandfather tells stories.

Older generations just seem to describe the details in a story better than us. Now, everyone's using emojis instead of words to describe things and sharing memes to illustrate their relatability. When we do tell stories, we roadmap and signpost in the most conspicuous ways possible. We try to underscore what's in it for people so they don’t tune out. Attention spans are short. But I’ve noticed that, collectively, we’ve gotten away from using details to paint pictures for people—from allowing them to immerse themselves fully within a scene.

We don’t allow people to find roadmaps and signposts on their own anymore.

I kind of hate that? I mean, I get it... but I don't like it. It just doesn't feel right. Have we become like this because of the overwhelming amount of communication in our modern world? Maybe. Have we stripped out the details and streamlined our words because of how many texts, emails, and voice memos we send each other? Probably. Have the number of ads, subtitled videos, and AI generated images in our feed made us too fatigued to communicate with any detail? Almost surely.

It’s ironic—media saturation makes us crave rich, detailed stories but leaves us too tired to create them ourselves. I have no idea if slower social media would incentivize a return to purposeful prose. Who knows if it would recalibrate things for us… but I’m willing to try.

Maybe it's time we made pen pals cool again?

Our Daily MAP Year Prompt 
35/365

The Artist’s Way reminds us to notice what we usually overlook. Try playing "I Spy" with yourself: take 10 minutes out of your day to focus on identifying one detail for each of your five senses.

onward.

-dmac