Speed Kills

The wife and I watched "84 Charing Cross Road" over the weekend, which had come recommended by my brother. And since we were watching it on his dime...well, why not.

Interesting movie. To put it too succinctly and miss the mark, it's like "You've Got Mail" without the romance. Really, it's a true story about a relationship between people connected only by mail and a love of books. Less succinctly, a New York writer (Helene) writes to an English second-hand book store in search of out-of-print books and ends up striking up a long-distance friendship with one of the partners (Frank), not to mention several other employees. It's an understated movie, and it says things today it probably never intended when it was made (1987).

For one thing, the two protagonists would probably never meet today. Helene would likely have done all her ordering of books through an internet interface and never interacted with Frank at all. The relentless march toward self-service in every aspect of life is removing human interaction from the picture. This movie makes a very strong case for that being a bad thing.

The movie left me feeling empty, like something important was missing. It occurred to me that the world is simply moving too fast. Everything is driving toward higher speed and greater efficiency; toward cramming more of everything into every minute of the day. In the process, I think, we're forgetting how to live. It's not about doing more--or it shouldn't be, anyway.

I would be wrong to blame the advent of email for the decline of personal letters. I'm sure that art form began to die well before that--probably with the advent of ubiquitous long distance telephone. But it's ironic and a little sad that in the process of speeding up communication we've forgotten how to make it meaningful. That which becomes easy becomes trivial, perhaps?

I don't claim to be any great correspondent. Frankly, I'm not. With the exception of wooing my wife I don't think I've learned the art of self-expression in letters. I'm far too used to summarizing events rather than communicating feeling. Helene and Frank communicated feeling.

It's not a problem of a lack of passion. People are every bit as passionate about things as they ever were. It's a problem in learning how to express that passion in textual form. Today we are taught to write to communicate information, not to convey personality and emotion.

So I suppose, though I was affected by the death of Frank in the movie, my sense of loss was for an entire medium for human interaction more than anything else. While I would not go so far to say that the movie couldn't happen today, I sense that it would be the exception, not the rule.

Another aspect of the movie that touched me was how the characters refused to let their interactions be impersonal. It would have been quite easy to establish the relationship around business only, but they didn't. They both looked beyond that. Helene found out that the English were under a meat rationing and she took the time to figure out how to send them meat for special occasions. They, in turn, looked for ways to return the favor. They didn't stop to think "England is too far away, why bother" or "the expense is inconvenient."

Helene even had a relationship with her local grocery store owner. She wasn't afraid to assume a measure of familiarity. Part of that was her personality, of course. Not everyone would be quite so outgoing as she was. But in general people didn't seem so quick to hide behind walls of impersonality. It's as if they had a desire to connect with other human beings, no matter how trivial the interaction.

I'm not like that, and I wish I were. I think society in general is not like that anymore, for numerous reasons. Interaction was not without risk then, either, but the risks are much greater today. But to a certain extent risk has become an excuse, not a consideration. "I don't want to talk to the grocery cashier because she might be a nutcase who start stalking me and my family if I reveal too much," might be a valid consideration, but the more probably truth is "I don't want to talk to her because I might have to talk to her again next time, and that familiarity might make me uncomfortable. Not to mention requiring effort to maintain."

Perhaps I'm too broad in speaking for society in general, but I don't think so. People like my dad, who actually concerns himself with whether the clerk is smiling or not, are rare. People like him are more tolerated than welcomed. We are not a nation of social risk takers.

If true, that trend cannot be a positive thing. While we continue to become more and more guarded in public, in private we become more and more vocal. The Internet gives every one of us the platform to scream at the top of our lungs while nestled safe behind anonimity. It is becoming easier to denigrate a person in private than to make a connection in public. I can't be bothered getting to know the middle-eastern man who runs the convenience store, but I have no problem ranting about what I think he stands for.

Free speech, while invaluable, is part of the problem. We'd do better to keep our opinions to ourselves and make personal connections instead. What's the old line? "They won't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Or perhaps, why should they care if you don't? Perhaps the kid down the block would think twice about vandalizing your car if he knew who it belonged to.

I know, physician heal thyself.