Instant Messaging

The other morning, my friend David complained that he had spent a whole hour replying to emails before he was able to get on with his day. When I made my first email account in middle school, I was surprised to get any emails at all—I mostly received spam and chain mail that threatened death in the middle of the night should I fail to forward the message to at least 5 people (and an amorous confession from my crush should I forward it to 10). I still wrote letters to pen pals; I still fantasized about using owls instead of the United States Postal Service. That sentiment persisted until the first week of college, when I signed up for too many activities at the Extracurricular Bazaar and spent the evening deleting the notifications that ensued. Those emails, strangely enough, gave me a thrill. Never mind that I was one among many names on a mailing list; someone out there had composed a few lines with me in mind, just moments before. It amazed me how quickly thoughts turned to words which could travel great distances with the click of a button. It’s no wonder we complain that our lives move too fast.

Like most adults, I soon graduated to disliking email, but every now and then, it sparks joy. After all, the same envoys that pester me morning and night have also allowed me, a mere medical student, to pester the likes of author Tobias Wolff, who (I like to imagine) opened my email about how much I enjoyed his short story “Class Picture” yesterday morning with a mug of coffee in hand, warmed by the California sun. That he sent a reply just twenty minutes later (“Dear Sue Li, That piece is actually a chapter from a short novel of mine, “Old School.” I think you might enjoy it…”) is, in my opinion, nothing short of a miracle. By snail mail, the message would have taken days upon weeks to arrive, during which all manners of tragedy could have occurred—death, change of address, insufficient postage—and my words so easily lost. While Tobias Wolff is unlikely to remember my name, I like to think that one tiny neuron, one synaptic connection, was permanently altered by the few moments in which I shared a space in his life. Email has allowed me to write to countless people who have influenced me and whom I would never be able to contact otherwise. Even if they never reply, it warms me to think that my words have occupied a few bytes in their inbox, if not their minds. To spend some time each day trudging through the crud of modern life seems, to me, a small price to pay.