Thursday, November 02, 2006

Email versus SMS

It all started with a question that one of my friend asked. Whether I prefer Emails or SMS's to keep in touch with my loved ones. Well it made my thoughts wander into a different nook. A place where no one generally venture. Even though the things in question are those that everyone use, no second thoughts are given to their social, psychological or physiological impacts.

We are pack animals. Well opinions may differ but we are animals, atleast that's a common point that everyone agree upon. As animals we have a tendency to search for security. This search land us in groups or packs. So we are pack animals and as pack animals we need to be near our pack. But unfortunately, in the present world living near one's roots is not possible at all.

They say our world is dynamic. But it is the micro dynamics of every moving individual that makes our world dynamic. We have to shift. We have to move to greener pastures for survival and it's not practical to move the entire pack to a new grazing land as in contrast to earlier times, nowadays the security is not in numbers but in agility. As we all know agility is indirectly proportional to numbers. I'm talking about the physical world.

But our mind works differently. Our psyche it seems are still tuned into our genetic code. The code that reminds us that we are animals. Maybe civilised but animals none the less. Our heart demands love, demands support, demands attention.

So even though we can survive much efficiently in this new world in isolation, our mind, or rather our soul keeps us locked with our true self. It is this need that has led to all these inventions, starting from the ordinary letter , telegraph to the modern contractions such as Emails or Short Messaging service.

Means of communications are born out of the need to communicate, need to be loved and so on, but it is ironic that most of the technology that are now used by us to love, to be with loved ones were all invented for war. Email and the internet was first designed for military use and so is every other contraction.

But that's our animal instinct too. An instinct to protect our pack from outside attack. War is just a fight for survival in tune with the principle of survival of the fittest as theorized by Charles Darwin.

I have been beating around the bush for a long time now. Lets get back to Email and SMS.....

Well I use both and I'm willing to use any other means and pay whatever it requires if it helps me to be with my roots or atleast be in touch. But there are opinions that Email is the most impersonal means to communicate as it is electronically generated and that written letters are more romantic and so on.

Of course written letters are more romantic, more personal. The fonts we use when we write, our hand writing are actually the font of our heart. Each person's font (hand writing) will be unique, as each person's soul is unique. In that sense I prefer letters to Emails, but letters are also referred to as snail mail. In this age of speed letters are starting to get obsolete. Of course letters are romantic, but impractical in this age of IT.

But I do love to write, do love to message, do love to phone... Everything is part of my struggle to survive in this world without losing my true identity. Without losing the address to which I belong. Without losing my soul. Without losing my sanity to the vultures of world economics.

We may not believe it. Earlier it was our earth, the elements, that guided our destiny. Those times were good as the earth guiding us is synonymous to God guiding us. That may have its uncertainties but, God loves us, our earth loves us. So no harm will come to us.

But now our destinies are controlled by analytic brains who control our world economy. We are guided not by stars but by our world's policy makers. That's something I can't agree with and I can't be without fighting against. As I believe that humans can never be impartial, can never completely be committed to humanity like mother nature is, like our God is.