In the past, before the eras of telephones and emails, a person would sit down at their mahogany desk and compose letters. To loved ones, to peers, to family members, to fans. These letters served as a record of the author's life, and many, many anthologies were published from them.
Beethoven left a collection of over 200. Vonnegut wrote them over sixty years. Leonardo da Vinci wrote many. Einstein, letters. Ayn Rand, letters.
Every one of these letter collections gave us invaluable glimpses into the minds of some of history's most fascinating, eclectic, and accomplished characters. They're all dated, so we can map them onto periods of the author's life. Feynman wrote to his tuberculosis-stricken wife. Beethoven wrote advice to a young aspiring pianist. Steinbeck advised his teenage son about love.
Then, sometime in the latter half of the twentieth century, the paper trail went dark. The letters were replaced by calls, then emails, then texts.
It's a little disheartening to realize that texts and emails will never replace them. The closest thing I can think of to letters in the post-Internet world is secret blog posts. Like this one. Though they aren't addressed to anyone in particular, they end up accomplishing a similar task when taking account of one's life years down the line.
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