Writing and mailing letters is a dying skill. There’s no reason it has to be seeing its way out among younger folks. There is something utterly valuable about holding a letter in your hands, not just having it be a file on your hard drive. You can keep them, make a booklet out of them, share them with your friends: physical mediums are simply more personal (and less lame).
I think there’s something to be said about our dependence on digital protocols to communicate. Communication through physical means like face to face, and by extension letters, will always be valuable because you can send tangible items. You can mail cash, checks and ship non-paper valuables.1
When we address systemic privacy concerns, writing letters beats any other online opsec techniques out of the water. We need to take advantage of the USPS’s services, like priority mail, signature confirmations, and PO boxes.
If you don’t know how to write a letter, learn online. If you don’t write letters, start by writing to your family. It could be a distant relative, or someone close by. Get writing!
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You can send a micro sd card (you can choose whether it be encrypted) as an alternative way to send someone large digital files. Of course, wrap it with aluminum foil and tape some cardboard on either side in a bubbled envelope. ↩︎