Reclaiming the Craft of Writing in an Age of Acceleration
The lost skill we can't afford to forget
We live in an era of relentless acceleration, where information is produced and consumed at dizzying speed. Every day, words pour forth in staggering quantities: social media posts, instant messages, AI prompts.
Technology has drastically lowered the threshold for producing text, yet in doing so, it has blurred the boundary between writing and mere output. The messages we send today may outnumber those of any previous era, but they are increasingly fragmented, disjointed, stripped of context. Fewer and fewer people are willing to spend the time to refine their thoughts, arrange their words, shape their paragraphs, and fewer still are willing to bear the responsibility that words once carried.
The text piled up in chat windows cannot rightly be called writing. What we are losing is not simply style, but the capacity to converse with ourselves, to weave memory and thought into coherence. We are also losing the opportunity to engage deeply with others, to form connections that endure.
I want to return to the beginning of writing: Not for the sake of messages sent in haste, nor for content manufactured to chase attention, nor for the endless copying and pasting of knowledge.
Rather, I return in the spirit of the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, who cultivated character, organized thought, and conversed with themselves through the discipline of writing.
This involves two forms of writing that are steadily disappearing: the letter (correspondence) and the introspective note (hupomnemata). The former is always written in the presence of another’s gaze; the latter turns toward one’s relationship with the self. Neither belongs to the realm of information exchange, but instead to the craft of self-formation.
In what follows, I will reflect on why letters and introspective notes matter, and how these practices may help us realign our thinking, and, in turn, rebuild steadier relationships with others.
The Death of Letters?
Twenty years ago, handwritten letters were nothing unusual. I remember exchanging one with a close friend every single day. Even though we saw each other almost daily, there were words that could only take shape on paper.
Today, not only do most people resist writing letters, even composing an email feels awkward and cumbersome. Many don’t know where to begin. Older generations often complain that young people’s emails read no differently from social media posts—too casual, lacking courtesy. With the rise of AI tools, some have gone further, outsourcing the task entirely, copying and pasting pleasantries generated by machines.
Instant messaging has undoubtedly lowered the cost of communication, and I myself have benefited from it. Even while living abroad, I can stay in touch with my family in Taiwan at any moment. But does this mean that letters, with their millennia-long history, are destined for extinction?
I believe the answer is no. For the meaning of letters goes far beyond the mere transmission of information. A letter is a way of living. It’s a craft of attention, an art that requires time to cultivate.
The Price of Speed
Place instant messages and letters side by side, and the contrast is clear. Messages privilege speed, immediacy, brevity; letters seem time-consuming, formal, uncertain. In an age that worships efficiency, it is natural to favor the former. Yet we often overlook the hidden cost.
Speed and immediacy send words out before they have time to settle. Unconsidered messages are often shallow or even harmful. Perhaps this is why most messaging platforms include a “recall” function.
But recalling a message does not erase its existence. The recipient may already have read it. Or worse, its disappearance may introduce a new layer of suspicion into the relationship. Such false reassurance only weakens our capacity to take responsibility for what we write.
The very design of messaging discourages length. Anything that stretches beyond the window often tries the reader’s patience. As a result, messages tend to be fragmented, disjointed, lacking continuity.
Letters are different. The moment you decide on a recipient, you also establish a dialogue that reaches across time. This form of writing requires you first to sort through your inner world, then to consider how it might appear in another’s eyes. It compels you to examine yourself, and to take responsibility for your thoughts and emotions.
In this way, the slowness of letters becomes a discipline in itself.
As Stoic philosopher Seneca points out,
…when one writes one reads what one writes, just as in saying something one hears oneself saying it. The letter one writes acts, through the very action of writing, upon the one who addresses it, just as it acts through reading and rereading on the one who receives it.
Carrying Emotion: The Irreplaceable Nature of Letters
Writing a letter is an act of romance.
When I was in elementary school, it was popular among girls to exchange letters with one another. After class, the stationery shop was one of our favorite gathering places. Even though these letters weren’t meant for someone far away but for classmates I would see the very next day, I still chose my stationery with care and practiced different ways of folding paper. Those days, when we spent time writing, waiting with anticipation for a reply, remain deeply cherished in my memory.
By the time I reached high school, I no longer exchanged handwritten letters with anyone. For younger generations, perhaps the experience of writing a letter by hand, or even using an envelope, has already vanished.
Yet I have always felt there is a vast difference between words written by hand and those sent as messages or emails. The traces left by each stroke of the pen cannot be casually erased, so each word requires careful thought. Handwriting itself conveys the sender’s emotions and character—something no standardized font in a chat window could ever express.
From the moment you begin writing to the time you send it, the effort invested in a letter far exceeds that of any instant message. And posting it does not bring relief, but rather heightens both anticipation and unease.
Will the letter reach its destination safely? Did I make a spelling mistake? Might my words be misunderstood? Should I not have been so direct in that last line?
Precisely because of the effort and emotion poured into it, every letter becomes all the more precious.
Seneca once wrote to a friend:
I thank you for writing to me so often; for you are revealing yourself to me [ te mihi ostendis ] in the only way you can. I never receive a letter from you without being in your company forthwith. If the pictures of our absent friends are pleasing to us… how much more pleasant is a letter, which brings us real traces, real evidence of an absent friend! For that which is sweetest when we meet face to face is afforded by the impress of a friend’s hand upon his letter —recognition.
In today’s world, governed by utility, messages and emails exist largely to accomplish a task: arranging a meeting, confirming a time, conveying a request. A letter, by contrast, is different in essence. It is not merely a transmission of information but an act of self-revelation.
Before putting pen to paper, we gather our emotions, reflect upon ourselves, and choose how much of our inner state to reveal. The entire process contains an element of introspection. This is why some scholars argue that the history of self-narration first took root in the practice of letter writing.
Why, then, is letter writing regarded as a form of discipline? Because in writing a letter, one places oneself under the imagined gaze of another—that “other” playing the role of a silent inner deity. And under this gaze, we are compelled to remind ourselves: to look into the innermost depths of the heart.
Writing as the Labor of Thought
Though letters have gradually faded from everyday life, the value of writing itself has never been forgotten. Especially today when AI can effortlessly generate an above-average essay, the ability to truly write has become rarer and more precious.
Unlike letters, which are always addressed to a specific recipient, everyday writing often has no fixed addressee. This practice of writing for oneself already existed in the first and second centuries CE. The Greeks called it hupomnemata, literally “things for reminding.” It is usually translated into English as “notebooks” or “memoranda,” but I believe its meaning is closer to “introspective notes.”
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus repeatedly emphasized the importance of writing. He regarded writing and contemplation as inseparable, writing was a kind of labor of thought, a discipline essential to shaping one’s character, a medium through which truths learned from reading could be transformed into ethos, the lived reality of personal character.
In our age, when information is instantly accessible, a single day’s intake may surpass what the ancients encountered in a lifetime. Without an inner mechanism for selection and reflection, we risk becoming mere carriers of information rather than true understanders of it.
To read without writing leaves us vulnerable to distraction. Only through the practice of note-taking can reading truly be transformed into one’s own thought. This is not merely a skill of reflection but a discipline of reason.
For the ancients, the writing of introspective notes followed two principles: “the immediate truth of the maxim,” and “its practical value in a given situation.” The first distilled wisdom from tradition; the second forged a connection between that wisdom and one’s present self.
Everyone may read the same book, yet interpretation and application are always unique, impossible to reproduce.
One should not reshape what one retains from an author in such a way that the latter might be recognized; the idea is not to constitute, in the notes that one takes and in the way one restores what one has read through writing, a series of “portraits,” recognizable but “lifeless”... It is one’s own soul that must be constituted in what one writes…
The Craft of Self-Formation
Letters and introspective notes were, for Michel Foucault, key techniques in shaping one’s character. The former trains us to examine ourselves under the gaze of another, seeking to align their perception with our own self-scrutiny. The latter, through the collection, organization, and internalization of others’ words, helps construct the self as a rational agent.
Although pen and paper are no longer my primary tools, I still practice this craft in daily life. Whenever I reach out to a writer or creator I admire, I choose to compose a formal letter-like email rather than send a brief instant message. The very act of writing realigns me with myself and reminds me that every communication is also a form of self-presentation—worthy of care and effort.
Whether addressed to another or to oneself, every letter and introspective note lays down a clear path for thought. In an age where information is easily forgotten and conversations vanish in an instant, the practice of writing with intention remains one of our best ways to resist chaos and the sense of acceleration.
Thanks for staying with me until the end.
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And as always, if something here struck you, let me know in the comments. I look forwards to hearing your thoughts! 💞