The Speed of Love

Do you ever wonder what happened to the lost art of writing love letters? Or what about ‘mix tapes’ that were the equivalents of musical love letters, that were painstaking compiled and delivered with adoration? As Valentine’s Day approaches, I started thinking about these things.

Technology has changed the way we communicate and express love. For hundreds of years, the speed of communication stayed fairly constant. From smoke signals to the pony express, our ability to improve communication was based on speeding up the delivery of our message. But then in 1988, the internet was born and in the early 90’s, it changed the way we communicate distinctly and significantly… forever!

Why write a love letter when we can tell someone “I Love You,” and share that message anywhere in the world, in milliseconds? What used to take a sailor at sea, weeks or months to send or receive a love letter, can now be blasted through Facebook, Instagram or TikTok at the speed of light.

But speed will never replace heart-felt sentiments. And maybe that’s why we get excited when we get a handwritten, stamped card in the mail. Someone took the time – to select or make the card, write a note, put a stamp on it, and finally mail it – to tell you how they feel. And maybe we need more of that these days.

Happy Valentine’s Day and remember to tell the people you care about all the ways you love them even with the simplest technology – your words.