World Citizen

I was writing an email the other day, and I opted to forgo the traditional “Dear [Name]” greeting, thinking to myself (and my addressee), Isn’t that what the “To:” field is for? It is not that I wanted to eschew convention; instead I longed to find something appropriate for the medium. Dear is an apparatus from another mode that I don’t think ports to email.

I appreciate that most folks treat email as an informal exchange, likely because of its immediacy. Yet messages almost always begin with the standard greeting. Which makes for a curious pairing with whatever follows—usually incomplete sentences dotted with improper or no punctuation and questionable capitalization. Yes email is instantaneous, but that doesn’t necessitate it being informal. The spoken word is immediate, yet we conduct ourselves according to different strictures depending on the situation. If we elevated email to a stature akin to it’s cousin correspondence and attuned it to its elecronic and immediate medium we would be the better for the effort.

In the midst of this little folly of thought, I was broadsided with a keen sense of personal failure. Here I am writing to a dear friend about unfolding world events of the utmost tragedy, and I’ve limited myself to being able to only parse news of it in one language. Would that I could open Der Spiegel or Le Monde and read the content without having to rely on a translation service.

I was reminded in that moment of a passage I recently read “Manners, might, and know-how. One will always do the trick.” That struck me. And inspired me. I’m not a spring chicken, but there’s always time to better oneself.