Tomorrow, U.S. postal rates will increase again. This time, there hasn’t been the traditional outcry, or it’s been at a lower volume. People probably don’t count their pennies, or two, as closely these days. The bigger reason, though, is that people don’t use postal services as often or as directly as they used to, and of course there is more competition. Need to talk to someone? Use some cell phone minutes or Skype. Need to write? Send an e-mail. Need to get something? Buy it online and have it shipped to yourself or to someone else. Need to pay a bill? Pay online. At this point, I suppose that most of what goes through the U.S. Postal Service is “direct” mail (advertising), magazines, some business-related mail, and parcels from retailers and sellers on ebay and other services.

I don’t imagine there are very many people left who would put five personal letters into the mail, as I just did — all to people for whom I have phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Why do I write? I like to — I like the feel of pen or pencil on paper, the kind of tactile sensation that our virtual reality society doesn’t seem to value. I can write almost anywhere — at the lake front, at a restaurant or café, or in a public garden as I am doing now. All I need is a notebook or paper and a pencil case. I don’t need a computer, computer case, battery, power supply, or a place with the right kind of lighting for an LCD — just a few ounces of the tools of the craft.

Those aren’t the most important reasons, of course. A handwritten letter is more personal. Some of my personality comes out in not only the choice of words and phrases (and topics), but in their shapes and sizes. Times New Roman is Times New Roman no matter who types it; my handwriting is my own.

The people I write to can read (or not read) my letters at their leisure, wherever and whenever they want — at the park, a restaurant, or café, or in a public garden. Or even in the bathroom. They don’t need to have equipment or a connection or a spot shielded from bright lighting.

I don’t expect anyone to respond to my letters in the same format; the time for letter writing seems to be past. When I was a child, one of the highlights of a summer day was the sound of the U.S. Postal Service Jeep pulling up to the mailbox outside the kitchen window. It would be a happy day if there were a letter from a pen pal or a postcard (addressed to me!) from Aunt Marietta, posted from one of her exotic destinations like Mexico or Switzerland. Even catalogs could be exciting, even though we knew we were never going to get to order from them.

At my apartment building, most of us check our mail when we get home from work or school, and most of us throw most of what we receive straight into the convenient trash can. Once in a while, someone will have a flash of joy by the mailbox area like that we felt when we were children. Last week, a man told me, “I got a letter! I don’t know when the last time I got a letter was! A LETTER!” He waved it half with joy, half with disbelief.

Writers and other thinkers have always communicated through letters. Thomas Jefferson wrote reams of correspondence, probably knowing that he would be communicating not only with the recipient but with the generations of Americans to come. His letters are as much a part of his legacy as his more formal writings. All of the Brontë sisters wrote letters that provide interesting insights into both their works and the family relationships and alliances that lay behind them. For a person in Anne Brontë’s position, supporting herself as a governess, writing letters was a costly necessity; she used some of the little money and free time she had to write them. Her letters, and those of her siblings, preserve her attitudes toward her position, her employers, and her society, and hint at her emotions.

Today, Anne would have sent e-mails to her family and friends. One wonders what they would have said — if they would have been quick reassurances that all was well, even if they weren’t, or if they would have been the more detailed descriptions that provide such insight into the Brontë family and a governess’s life. The accessibility and instantaneousness of e-mail might hinder the very depth of thought and feeling that went into the letters written by Jefferson, the Brontës, Hardy, and so many others. It’s easy to shoot off a quick e-mail that reveals little, but hard to write a letter about what is really on your mind.

I write so many letters that I’m sure they are not particularly special to their recipients. Any deep thoughts I may have are locked in the basement of my psyche, as I have been told. I tend to babble about the mundane, which is safe and doesn’t reveal much about me other than that I am like everyone else.

Except that I write letters. Lots of letters.

I have no sense of time. I will think to myself that I need to do something by a certain date, say, pay the insurance, with the idea that it is far off. Then suddenly, without warning, I will be confronted by the date. In most cases, it is not procrastination or even absent-mindedness. It’s a dysfunctional, deranged internal clock.

The same thing sometimes happens during the week, where in my mind I will think it’s Tuesday, only it’s really Thursday. This doesn’t mean that I am irresponsible or that I miss deadlines. I just have to be more conscious of reminding myself of the date, and I have to do what I can right away, so that it doesn’t become lost in the mists of time or the time warp created by my mind.

I experience the same confusion about life. I can’t conceive of how nearly 24 years have passed since college graduation. I have few, if any, personal milestones by which to mark them — no wedding, no births, no first day of school, no first Scout badge, no graduations to the next school level. I have no great vacations to remember, no “year I went to London,” “year I went to the Amazon,” “year I went to Romania,” “year I went to Egypt,” and so forth.

My last travel of note was 10 years ago in April, a trip to San Francisco that was half business, half vacation. Since then, I’ve visited family members or attended the Ann Arbor Art Fair. I no longer have much opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., where one day my aunt and I got lost in Rock Creek Park. On another day, we took a quick trip to Monticello, Michie Tavern, and Ash Lawn, with a stop at Luray Caverns. While we were driving south on Skyline Drive, I saw a bobcat cross the road in front of us, going from one side of a little bridge to the other, and watched its little tail bob as it zigzagged up the hillside. This fleeting sight is one of my fondest memories. And it happened, I think, in 1993 or so. That bobcat has long since passed on, yet it seems it was only a few years ago since it startled me with its unexpectedness.

For awhile, I seemed to be in or attending a wedding every other week, which was stressful. At the time, I thought I wanted them all to be over as soon as possible so my life could return to normalcy. Now, the products of some of those unions are entering college. Didn’t I just go to the one girl’s first birthday party? Or was that really in 1990?

I’ve stopped watching television and listening to popular music stations, so I can’t mark the years by the popular TV shows and stars or by the hit songs and performers. Everything, especially in the last 10 years, post-depression, post-stressful consulting job, has become a blur of days that are very much the same as another.

My emotions have changed, too. When I was younger, under 35, I enjoyed every change in routine, even small ones like a day trip or regular ones like visits to family. Anything that I had never done before, even something simple like a visit to Volo Bog or a Mennonite store, was the height of excitement that made boredom, loneliness, and daily frustrations at work and home tolerable.

Once in a while I think I should do or plan something to break out of this gangrenous stagnation and apathy, but there are obstacles. Sometimes they are purely practical, for example, no money or time. Sometimes they stem from my dislike (not fear) of flying. Sometimes they have other psychological foundations, like an overwhelming sense of anhedonia and that I don’t deserve to do positive or enriching things for myself. I don’t consciously think that, but I can’t attribute my inertia and apathy to anything else, only to vague fears of something in the future.

Still, a large part of the problem is my distorted sense of time — my idea that “someday” I will do the work I want to do, take the type of vacations I think I would enjoy, meet and spend time with people who have come to mean something to me, and treat myself to what I deserve as much as anyone.

What does “someday” mean? My life is half over, my health is starting its middle-aged decline, and at best I may have 20–25 good years left. My aunt, who lived a very full life, died at age 71 after a short bout with pancreatic cancer. I may have 27 years left, or I may have one day — who is to say?

Why do I have such difficulty living for today? Why do I have such difficulty living? Why do I have such difficulty answering those questions? And why must I ask them at all?

The question “Why?” is part of what drives the human experience. Small children ask “Why?” (or “Why not?”) incessantly, and those with great minds — da Vinci, Newton, Einstein — ask “Why?” and “How?” about the fundamental nature of the universe and existence.

The rest of us are left asking why someone would kill 32 fellow travelers before turning against himself. The need for what we call “closure” is also an essential part of the human experience.

The simplest answer for many is to say that he was a “monster.” But what is a monster if not a human — a horribly flawed human? In Christianity, humanity was defined as flawed when it defied God, who cast it from the Garden of Eden. Literature exists to expose and describe the flaws of heroes and anti-heroes and those around them. Without flaws, we would not be human. With flaws, we should not be “monsters,” either.

The most rational answer seems to be mental illness. A person might kill someone in a fit of blind rage or jealousy or another strong emotion, when the primitive brain dominates. A person might plot against an individual or group who has, in their perception, wronged him or her, for example, a spouse’s lover. Such an action is not normal or justifiable, but it is not necessarily a sign of mental illness. Coldly gunning down dozens of random, innocent people in revenge for a lifetime of slights, perceived and real, after planning it and memorializing the thought behind that plan, seemingly without emotion, is.

What is “mental illness”? It’s too vague a term, as “physical illness” would be. In most cases, it’s relatively easy to test for and diagnose a wide range of physical abilities, ailments, and impairments — heart, lung, liver, kidney function, even brain function; the presence of antibodies; the malformation of organs; the deterioration of structures. I don’t think we have even begun to determine what the mental illnesses are, without which diagnosis and treatment are difficult and sometimes impossible.

Like physical illness, mental illness covers myriad disorders. Just as most people are physically ill at some point in their lives, even with a cold or flu, I suspect most people experience mental illness, too. I believe that many suffer from bouts of depression at least once in life, perhaps situational depression triggered by the loss of a spouse, other family member, friend, or a job, or depression that can accompany some illnesses, including those that are chronic. Bad things happen to nearly everyone, and only the most resilient individuals might never feel depressed for any length of time.

While many people have been depressed, mental illness carries a stigma because it is so often associated with the extremes — the cold-blooded sociopaths, the serial and mass killers, the murderous pedophiles.

We try to answer the question of “Why?” with various theories that it is too late to prove and that are now of no use. Sociopathy? Personality disorder? Depression? Which? Caused by what? Faulty biological wiring? Environmental and experience factors? Both?

Many children and even adults are bullies, more than many of us realize. My reaction to bullies, learned quickly at age 5, was to hold my head high and ignore them — that is, not to give them the reaction, thrill, and satisfaction they craved. I dreaded them and feared a surprise attack every day for many years, but found other things to take my mind off them most of the time. I may have thought of embarrassing them in revenge, but never of anything violent. I am not a bully.

We will never know how the man was bullied,or how much was real or perceived. A lonely, sick mind may make itself sicker with time, experience, brooding and the lack of balance provided by normal human interaction. In a nation as large as ours, in a world as populated as ours, there will always be sick minds, and there will always be bullies. They are both outliers of human society, and we have not learned how to manage them, or even to identify them. For now, the risk of a sick mind turning into the violent bully it most decries is one that we continue to live with. Let us hope that the lonely, the shy, and the depressed are not made to pay a price.

And let us hope that someday we are able to find out why.

If you’re like me, you don’t know anything about eHarmony.com other than what you’ve seen in their advertising — that the company claims its matchmaking system, based on 29 areas of compatibility, is more likely to get you your dream match than those of their competitors, and that eHarmony’s founder likes to appear on camera. This strikes me as odd because Neil Clark Warren doesn’t quite have the trademarked offbeat image or the eccentric charisma of a Colonel Sanders or even an Orville Redenbacher. He’s plain, ordinary, and painfully earnest.

Not even his Ph.D. from my alma mater can make him or his message compelling, at least to me.

At about the same time I started seeing a plethora of eHarmony commercials, a friend mentioned that she had completed the eHarmony personality profile, so my curiosity was piqued. The advertising features people who don’t appear to be models; they do look real enough. Some are even older people, perhaps over 50 or 60. They seem normal, but there is something a little disturbing to me in their smiles and their cloying happiness that they have found someone with whom they instantly and magically clicked.

When they are telling me this after 30 years, surrounded by children and grandchildren, I’ll be impressed with the success of the relationship, at least the public aspects of it. But not when they are in a commercial talking about how well the first date went.

I don’t think this will ever be me, perfectly dressed and coiffed, smiling with 32 flawless pearly whites, and clinging like a Stepford wife to my newfound soul mate.

Still, I decided to find out what eHarmony would tell me about me and my ideal match. Admittedly, the concept of the latter would be new to me, since Mr. Stepford wife has yet to make an appearance. So I spent a half hour filling out the profile in a brutally honest way. I’m no beauty, I’m not in top physical condition, and I’m not vivacious and outgoing. I don’t make a good Stepford wife, actually. Hmmm. The more questions I completed, the less l could picture myself being invited to appear in an eHarmony commercial.

Frankly, eHarmony is a lot like Myers-Brigg, only not as accurate. The personality profile I ended up with is not exactly spot on, as Myers-Brigg was. Despite the consistency of my introverted answers, eHarmony seems to think I’m on the line between introversion and extroversion, comfortable on my own or in most social situations.

No, that’s me at the party, reading a book in a cozy, hidden corner (ideally), or looking desperately for someone familiar who’s chatty to make up for my lack of garrulousness so I can appear outgoing.

There were a few other areas in which eHarmony made me more middle-of-the-road, more “normal,” than I actually am.

But apparently I’m not normal enough to deserve love, or even a nice first date, because after another half hour of my life that I can’t get back, hunched over my iBook and aiming at what seemed to be hundreds of radio buttons, I learned the horrible news:

eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research with married couples. One of the requirements for successful matching is that participants fall within certain defined profiles. If we find that we will not be able to match a user using these profiles, we feel it is only fair to inform them early in the process.

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish happy, lasting relationships that we sometimes choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand, and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time.

You can still receive your free Personality Profile by clicking here.

No wonder I’m single! After 30 seconds of dissecting my heart, soul, and intellect, eHarmony determined that there’s no way to match someone as unique as I am — me and that 20% who are just not predictably matchable, or at least not through a “system.” That’s twenty percent who may not work out as Stepford wives.

This intrigued me, along with something I’d noticed — there were neither of the usual “man seeking men” or “woman seeking women” options.

I found a Salon.com article by Rebecca Traister about eHarmony and its founder, Neil Clark Warren (I reserve the “Dr.” title for medical/veterinary professionals, not Ph.D.s), who turns out to be a conservative Christian. According to Traister, eHarmony “. . . won’t match gays or depressed people or anyone who’s been married more than twice.”

Traister goes on to say:

When I asked Warren about his refusal to serve same-sex couples, he listed several reasons for his policy. “First, we’re into marriage,” he said, pointing out that gay unions remain illegal in almost every state. He also doesn’t feel there is adequate research on how men can be matched up with other men, or women with women.

“It’s just not an easy point! We’ve got thousands of years of history of the human race in which this was never treated as a marriage and there are a lot of people who think it’s just not going to have the same kind of stability over time.”

This strikes me as a weak defense. First, this rationale presumes that “marriage” is merely a legal contract between two parties — parties of the opposite sex. This diminishes the sacred aspect of marriage, which should be before God, not men. Is a long-term or lifetime loving commitment to one partner any less sacred without the legal blessing of man’s secular government?

Then, while Warren’s goal for his heterosexual members may be marriage, who is to say that that is the goal of any given member? Some people, of either sexuality, date with the objective of finding their soul mate. Others just like to date. It could also be said that some people, of either sexuality, remain faithful to their partners; others simply cannot. eHarmony cannot control, or predict, the actions of its members. After all, does everyone answer the questions, all of the questions, brutally honestly?

There is also the matter of the science. Why presume that the 29 areas of compatibility could be significantly different for homosexuals? Gays are not a different species; they’re subject to the same human psychology, whatever it is, as the rest of us. Why not at least try the same formula to see how effective it is?

If bringing together heterosexuals in successful marriages is satisfying (and eHarmony has decades to go before it can be determined if it has accomplished this), then how is uniting non-heterosexuals in equally committed relationships any less so? Even Warren seems uncomfortable with the Old Testament’s judgments and punishments.

But I digress, because I’m not gay, and I’ve not been married more than twice, yet eHarmony can’t help me. That’s probably because my answers indicated I’m in that other outcast category, “depressed.” In a way, this seems fair enough. A relationship with a person prone to depression is probably fraught with additional difficulties. Yet it doesn’t make sense to single out depression among the many emotional and physical disabilities that could complicate a relationship. For example, the questionnaire didn’t ask if I have visions of myself as a 13-year-old boy with Christ, like Naomi Wolf, but I imagine I’m a lot easier to get along with.

Then, too, there is the matter of misrepresentation. What if I were to go back and answer the questions in a less brutally honest way, if I were to represent myself as cheerful and optimistic? Would eHarmony find a perfect match for my altered persona, a happy, well-adjusted man who would find himself on a memorable first (and last) date with a brooding melancholic who is nothing like the smiling Stepford wife his profile called for?

Of course, there is always the concept that anyone who uses eHarmony should be an adult with eyes wide open. Take me, match me to someone who seems to be tolerant of a tendency to sadness. Let us, as adults, determine for ourselves if that is really true. If it is, wonderful. If it is not, then, like many others before us, single and married, we will end up parting, perhaps to try again with another. Surely there are depressed or sad people out there who have managed to have successful relationships — with or without eHarmony’s permission.

I suppose this means that eHarmony is not the perfect match for me after all.

Now if only I could have that half hour of my life, that “first date,” back.

If you don’t follow the news, whether online, or on television or radio, and if you don’t have a family member, friend, or coworker serving in the military, would you know that the U.S. is at war?

This isn’t a pointless or trite question, but one about how we the public have come detached from a world that is increasingly sanitized for us, a world in which we are observers rather than participants, a world that we hope will somehow, someday set itself right — when someone, we don’t know who, when, or where, invents miraculous technologies that will allow growing populations with heightened quality-of-life expectations and demands to live on dwindling space, animal, plant, and even element resources, such as topsoil and water.

If you don’t know anyone serving in the military, how otherwise does the war in Iraq or the action in Afghanistan affect your day-to-day life? Except for some economic fluctuations that could be due to many factors, it probably doesn’t.

Now think about World War II, a war fought before everyone had televisions, radios, and personal computers. Yet you could not fail to think about it. People across the country gave up commodities like stockings so the materials could be used for the war cause. Companies like Kraft Foods advertised that their prepared dinners utilized fewer ration points. Women became “Rosie the Riveter,” filling the growing number of industrial positions left vacant by able-bodied men sent to the front. Military recruitment posters caricatured the enemy and Hollywood cranked out war and propaganda movies and shows, while Bob Hope and friends entertained the troops. Every radio program referred to the war, whether it was Jack Benny asking you to buy war bonds or “Fibber McGee” reminding you about ration points. The president spoke regularly to the public about the war.

In short, your everyday life, from the food you ate and the work you did to the entertainment you enjoyed, was affected by events thousands of miles away in the European and Pacific Theaters. Everyone was in it together.

Not so today. Most of us go about our business, eating what we also do, going to our jobs, and renting Pirates of the Caribbean as though there weren’t a war going on, as though we didn’t have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting to hold both countries together and fighting for personal survival.

What you might notice is a greater amount of military recruitment advertising on cable channels geared toward young men. In between the commercials for fast food, games, and technical schools are those about the “Army of One.” The messages are different for different audiences. In one, an older man talks to a young soldier about the need for trust and to be able to rely on one another, appealing to young men who want responsibility and camaraderie. For those who desire excitement, another commercial shows a young recruit on leave, at home with his civilian buddies. When he tells them he works with computers, they look at one another incredulously and point out to him that he could have done that here. “Not really,” he says, as he is shown in the think of adrenaline-pumping action. One focuses on life after the military. A former soldier is introduced to the team at his new employer as someone who learned something about aviation and mechanics at his “last job.” Yet another appeals to patriotism; a soldier is shown jogging past the people and property and neighborhood he is defending and is joined by other fresh-faced soldiers who run with him (the only commercial in which female soldiers make a token appearance).

The Navy simply plays coy. Water is shown lapping a beach in the dark for some seconds, then the Navy Seals Web site appears on the screen.

War and terrorism are strangely absent from each of these commercials. During World War II, we were called upon to fight sneering Nazis and sinister Japanese; during the Vietnam conflict, we were called upon to fight the Viet Cong and communism. Today we are not called upon to fight at all. We are called upon to experience trust and camaraderie, excitement, on-the-job training, and pride.

But we are not fighting anyone, whether you call them the Taliban, insurgents, or terrorists. We are not rationing or sacrificing food, raw materials, or food. What we are doing is eating, working, shopping, partying, etc., as though there weren’t a war, or as though it is so removed from our reality that it doesn’t affect us or our lives. That seems to be what we want, and what our leaders want.

I am not so sure I feel comfortable feeling so comfortable. At some point in a not-very-distant future, all of us will have to start sacrificing some of that comfort, including those who have had it for a while, those who are just getting used to having it, and those to whom it is being marketed. The planet can’t sustain it, nor can our combined propensity for procreation, consumption, and conflict.

Your cave or mine?