Instant Gratification Overload

Tea: Lapsang Vanilla

Music: Wild Cherry, "Play That Funky Music"

Time: Night

So I've sent out ... (counting) ... 32 e-mails so far today and tonight to artists and gallery directors. (Yeah, I'm a bit behind on my correspondence. I'm trying to do something about it, at least.) Out of those 32 recipients, two have replied as of this writing.

Considering it's the weekend, that's not a bad number. Given the way communications used to be ... it's nothing short of phenomenal.

Say it's 1860, and I want to send a letter from St. Joseph to Sacramento. Enter the Pony Express, which -- if nobody gets popped out of the saddle -- will get the missive from point A to Point B in ten days. That's considered fast.

It took weeks, sometimes, for my father's letters to get home from the Pacific Theater during World War II.

Now, I can get calls from England in real time. I can send out almost three dozen notes in the span of several hours, and know they've all arrived safely in their destined in-boxes.

And you know what? I'm spoiled. We all are, I think.

It's easy to take quick communication for granted, even for those of us (yes, we dinosaurs do still roam the earth) who remember the days when hitting "send" meant licking a stamp and dropping a letter in a slot.

We take it as a given that people will be reachable -- by e-mail, by cell phone, by instant message. It's not a far leap to expecting them to be reachable at our convenience, not theirs, no matter the circumstances at the receiving end. Let a call go to voice mail? How dare she?

It's a symptom, I think, of a larger malady. Things -- long-distance conversations, fast transportation, putting food on the table -- are too easy for us, and as a consequence, we don't appreciate them as much as we should.

Shutting off our cell phones and unplugging our computers for a week would help us grow a bit fonder of instant communication, perhaps. But that's about as likely to happen as -- oh, I don't know -- an election in which looks don't matter and no cards get played.

Oops, got to go. I have a call coming in.