Nobody has been able to explain to me what the whole point of writing something was. I would assume that the picture is enough. The recipient gets an idea of where you are, and you can relate all the funny stories later (they are usually too long to be written on a postcard anyway). The recipient is also not interested in facts, statistics or anything of this sort; even if it relates to the place you're at, and even if they would get a better picture of the place, it's at least unusual to give a full weather report as it is on dolomiti.it or elsewhere (not to mention, the postcard is too small for that as well). Whoever reeds a postcard is looking for a subjective evaluation. That's where the problem comes from.
Basically, you have two options: "it rocks" and "it sucks", both of which suck. Whichever you choose, you can't avoid an outcome rather unpleasant for the reader. With the "it rocks" option, what you tell them is "hey, this is awesome, I'm enjoying this wonderful place while you're at school/work". Once you realize this, you try to make your wonderful vacation look a bit less amazing, but what you get is about: "hey, I know that you're currently laboring over spreadsheets and your boss is a stubborn bitch, but this vacation totally sucks, we have only a 3-course dinner and thai massages are extra".
However, I acknowledge the romantic nostalgia of hand-written (and therefore almost unreadable) cards as opposed to facebook/flickr albums and e-cards. In some weird, twisted self-torturing way, I like sending postcards. So please, approach them with understanding and forgiveness, you will be rewarded another upsetting piece of my scribble soon.
You know what, I disagree with you about the ultimate purpose of postcards. Yup, postcards are usually filled with information - but so are personal blogs, and they don't have any size limitation. The difference between this blog and a postcard is very simple.
ReplyDelete"Recipients."
Once you've gotten a postcard, you know that the person who had sent it remembered and that you are important enough to them to actually bother with a task which, as you put it, is "very painful".
...whereas if you didn't get any postcards, you know that you're totally unimportant to anyone and then, there's only one thing you can do.
Comment on other people's blogs.
If I didn't make myself clear, my point was that postcards typically carry no information (if you don't wanna look for fingerprints or DNA....) and therefore are pointless - unlike weather-watch servers, webcams or even blogs.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are quite narcissistic. Unlike postcards, they are -as you point out - places of unlimited space for self-presentations. You could oppose that so are postcards, especially if you choose the 'it rocks' option. The difference is, as you point out, recipients. It is you, who open this blog and reed it, nobody spams your mailbox.
This gets us back to postcards - people remembering one another.
I would also like to thank you for posting this brilliant paraphrase of "Here I sit, broken hearted".
Let me assure you that from now to eternity, I shall annoy you with completely pointless postcards from places I visit while you are at school. =)