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shown that people experience a boost of happiness
when they hand-write thank-you cards to other people.
He believes letter-writing brings me joy because it’s
more than just the act of recording a few thoughts—it’s
both a physical and emotional process, and it’s quite
a difference from my daily habits of exchanging emails
and typing on a computer. “Research seems to suggest
that the process of writing is psychologically different,
because you take time—it takes a lot more time, and
people fundamentally know that,” he says. “When
you put things in writing, it is physical, and it’s a
process that requires you to reflect more on what
you’re doing.”
When I’m writing letters, to myself or to friends, it’s
almost a whole-body experience. I try to find a nice
place to get comfortable. I need to look at the page
when I write, unlike when I type at my computer. I need
to actively think about how to connect my thoughts in
a way that makes for a pleasant experience for the
reader. One poorly-timed text message can derail my
train of thought and my entire letter, so I put my phone
away when I’m writing.
So much of our lives are transactional, Toepfer
believes. Think about email, and how we generally only
send it when we want something, or when someone
wants something from us. “I think the traditional kind of
writing is very different,” he says. “You stop and are
thoughtful about it. I used to write way more on paper. I
don’t remember ever writing letters to anybody to ask
them to do things. I was just writing to people to
correspond with them. For pleasure. I think that actually
holds a lot of wealth.”
Alea Clymer, from Two Hands Paperie paper store in
Boulder, Colorado, US, also writes letters to her future
self. She holds onto hers a long time before opening
them—sometimes years. I tear mine open as soon as they
arrive. “I think there’s something cool about putting
something down on paper that captures who you are at
that time, then being able to reflect on that,” she says.
She told me about a letter she wrote to herself in her first
year at college, and how she had said in it that she
wanted to become captain of the frisbee team. She
eventually did, and when she read the letter years later,
she realized she had forgotten it had ever been a goal. >