Time is Relative

 Einstein was and is right all along. In his Special Theory of Relativity, he posited, “Time is relative.” In sum, the rate at which time passes depends on one’s context or frame of reference. 

Before computers changed the concept of time, snail mail had its schedule. And we were comfortable with it. A Christmas card mailed in the US in December, for instance, arrived in the Philippines in February. That was the norm.   

But today?!  

We laugh when Christmas cards from abroad reach us after December, as though snail mail is a total failure and obsolete.  

In defense of snail mail, it has exponentially improved. It still cannot compete with cyber speed (real time), but it has made a great leap. 

Here are two proofs: 

1) The card sent by son #2 and his family from the US reached us on Jan. 4.

2) The card from my brother and his family in Australia arrived on January 10.

Messages sent via snail mail are more personal, signed, slaved over with love, drafted and edited, and prepared for (addressing and putting stamps on the envelopes and licking them, plus mailing time), and therefore can never be replicated by GIFs and emojis cut and pasted from the Net.  

My age is showing. Yes, I am pining for those days when time was slower and people had ample moments to appreciate the grace that came with every ticking of the hour.