Correspondence
I have 1,200 emails to answer right now about things I’ve written. They are making me nervous so I’ll write about them.
I try to email everyone back. It’ll take about 100–200 hours spread over the next six months to work through those, with past as source of estimate. I was never socially comfortable in my life in any way, so it’s not something where I have a natural facility. I don’t like to say “thanks for the kind words.” I don’t like canned responses. Someone wrote last week asking for advice for his son, who just graduated college. Of course I will answer that in detail. Someone wrote from Iran asking for a PDF. Of course I will answer that. And so forth. I like replying.
I’ve sent a bunch of unsolicited letters in my life. I worry about them. If I tell someone that I love their work, will I slip and somehow say something shitty? I’m often relieved when people don’t reply. But I will offer my correspondents no such relief. Also, I admire people who write others out of the blue, who send a memory or opinion. Sometimes they are critical of my life or choices, or think I am wrong, or see some flaw in my thinking, or have decided that I am racist or sexist, or take issue with my liberalism, or want me to sign up for something or give them something.
I keep a constant inventory of the failings that strangers account within me. I listen best I can but since I keep getting the same emails it’s clear that the criticism has failed to jar me into the state of awareness that some hope to achieve, or perhaps some critics are caught in a rhetorical loop. Whatever. Neither party is going to change.
I don’t like when people threaten violence. If people seem very weird or are just mean I don’t write them back. That seems fair. The vast majority just have some question.
Sometimes I meet people and they say, “I wrote you an email when I was 18.” And they are 25 or 30 now. I say: “I hope I wrote back.” I’m relieved to know if I did. I’m sure I’ve missed hundreds of emails over the years for various reasons. Sometimes it takes me a year to reply.
Some people think this is crazy. Other people propose strategies for dealing with emails, quick replies that cut off the thread. Canned responses. FAQs. Autoreplies. But people didn’t write to talk to some robot proxy. I don’t know. There really isn’t anything better for humans than communicating with other humans. I wish I could let the guilt out of it.
I guess that’s the next phase; rather than feeling an obligation, letting the world pile up, feeling instead just amusement. So glad to hear from you. I heard a joke today. Here is a question to which I do not know the answer. Send me a picture of your pets. That is, play.
