In Praise of Email

Email doesn’t buzz my phone or watch.

Email can’t see me.

Email can’t hear me.

Email can’t cough on me.

I can delete an email without being rude.

I can laugh at an email without being rude.

I can adore an email and read it 18 times and research its topics and its author and its recipients and take hours replying, link to voluminous treatises for further reading, add graphics, and CC six people on six continents who would really like to see it, and BCC two more people who would really like to see it but don’t want to get involved.

I can reply to an email in less than 2 seconds, and again, and again.

Or I can put an email off for three weeks while I think about it.

I can send an email to hundreds of people at the same time in each of their time zones.

I can send an email next Wednesday now.

I can send an email to a half a million people in one city.

I can send a better email to just the people who didn’t open the first one.

I can send a better email to just the people who opened the first one but didn’t yet say they were willing to help nonviolently shut down CNN.

I can write half an email now and finish it later.

I can read an email on my computer, not just my phone.

I can find all my emails in one place without having to check eight other communications systems, each preferred for no discernable reason by various subgroups of under-appreciators of email.

I can live with being called old better than with trying to think in ideas no longer than I can obscurely hint at in 8 seconds or less with my thumbs.

I can take part in big open discussions with lots of people by email.

I can filter out all the emails from anyone less than helpfully contributing to the discussion, and not tell them I did so.

I can read whichever emails I want first, middle, and last.

I can receive and sort all my emails the way I like with no corporate algorithm helping.

I can email while eating.

I can say only what I would want put down in writing, and not say anything anywhere else that I wouldn’t want put down in writing.

I can email while watching a video.

I can email you in the middle of the night and trust you to understand that you can receive it in the morning or next week.

I can send only emails that I want disgusting snooping governments and their corporate henchmen to spy on and not deprive myself of sending any emails.

I can avoid being misperceived as angry by proper wording and smiley faces everywhere.

I can avoid being accurately perceived as angry by proper wording and smiley faces everywhere.

I can read and send emails advertisement-free.

I can get vastly more done than I could ever do in any other way but shutting off everything except email.

I can unplug and relax by the pool while people exclaim that I must never sleep.

I can live with all the replies to the tune of “You idiot, you hate war, but email was invented by the military” because I can both filter them out and auto-reply to them with links to careful explanations of where email came from, why it doesn’t matter, and how much better off we’d be investing in technology through anything other than a mass-murder operation.

So, stop complaining about your damn emails!