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According to this link, there are many things about to become extinct in our country; on the list are (in reverse order from the original post):
1. Pit toilets
2. Yellow Pages
3. Classified Ads
4. Movie Rental Stores
5. Dial-Up Internet
6. Phone Landlines
7. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs
8. VCRs
9. Ash Trees
10. Ham Rado
11. The Swimming Hole
12. Answering Machines
13. Film Cameras
14. Incandescent Bulbs
15. Stand-alone bowling alleys
16. The Milkman
17. Hand-written letters
18. Wild Horses
19. Personal Checks
20. Drive-in Theatres
21. Mumps and Measles
22. Honey Bees
23. News Magazines and TV News
24. Analog TV
25. The Family Farm
I understand the logic that suggests why all of these are fading, some of them rapidly (where art thou, honey bees?), but I am troubled by the notion of extinction itself.
The thought of extinction makes us sad (at least it makes me sad), and yet extinction is a fact of life. According to this website, "Since the year 1600, a total of 83 mammals species (2.1%) and 113 birds (1.3%) are known to have become extinct. This number is expected to rise . . . " In the case of animals, I always feel badly to think that something--let's say the polar bear--will become extinct, but I feel entirely helpless about preventing it. Perhaps too many of us feel that something's extinction is a foregone conclusion, that it is a part of the ebb and flow of existence.
In the case of technological extinction, I also feel sad to think of something's loss--hand-written letters, oh my!! But ask me if I write hand-written letters and I will blush with shame. I am dependent upon my keyboard and the speed with which I can write upon it. When I occasionally jot notes to my mom and dad I am appalled by the slowness of the process--the seemingly endless motions of making characters by hand. I should be reveling in the nostalgia of it, since it is suggested that by the time my children are adults no one will be writing this way at all . . . and oh, how sad to think of all that beautiful stationary that I once bought . . .
The picture above is a small selection of letters I saved over the years, ever since I was a child. Although I love e-mail and suffer from a slight addiction to it, I find nothing special about saving e-mails. I don't have a bag of neat e-mails that I'll look at in 20 years, but these letters--what a lovely physical memory of things people wrote to me once, of a certain moment in time when they felt a certain way and made certain plans that are now long-lost to their memories.
But were they meant to be saved? Is it natural to look at things on the verge of extinction and wish them a fond farewell, or is it incumbent upon us to try to preserve what we feel to be good and worthwhile?
This is my philosophical question to you today.
