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National Send A Card To A Friend Day 2024
It’s National Send A Card To A Friend Day. Lucky me. My friend is here with me all the time, which saves on postage.
Reflection
I don’t turn to greeting cards for wisdom and advice, but they are a fine reflection of the general drift of the culture. ~Susan Orlean
Back in the analog days when I was growing up, it was a given that you would send greeting cards for tons of occasions. Holidays, birthdays, weddings, graduations, funerals and whatever all else. You got somebody a card.
Picking these things out was almost as much of a treat as receiving them. We could spend a leisurely while strolling along a wall of cards, looking for just the right one.
Get a funny card? A religious one? Maybe a pretty one with bas relief texture of the flowers depicted or one with a surprise 3D fold-out that unfurls when you open it.
We didn’t have smart phones, social media, ubiquitous connectivity with family and friends. We had card shops. If we had a kind thought for someone, we’d get them a card and drop it off or send it through the mail.
With the shift from analog to digital, there were e-Cards. We could send a cheerful greeting to anyone on the planet at a moment’s notice for free or for half the price of a physical card if you wanted one of the special designs.
As an avowed cheapskate and lifelong nerd, this was the intersection of good and better.
As much as I look back at the days of perusing a wall of cards with wistful nostalgia, I happen to enjoy being able to share a smile with whoever happens to be following me online even better.
There’s something lost in the general move away from greeting cards, but I love having realtime access to people across the country and the globe. Memes are free and they bring smiles worldwide.
As in bygone days, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting a greeting card for anyone you’re moved to for whatever event you choose to celebrate.
Even I, with my penny-pinching inclination, still get a Valentine’s Day card for Kelly if I happen to get to the store in time. Sometimes, I’m still inspired to buy someone a card.
It’s not the social pillar of cordial decency it used to be, but it’s still nice to do sometimes.
If you’re moved to share a random act of kindness, there are still cards around. Go ahead and grab a card for someone special. Any day is a good day to share a smile or a kind thought.
Who Designs These Things?
Day in the Life of a Greeting Card Designer
There used to be, and possibly still are, entire stores dedicated to the trade in greeting cards. Nowadays, I still come across the occasional wall of cards at the dollar store, the grocery store or even the Walmart.
As much as one would expect this industry to go the way of buggy whips and ice wagons, they’re still around in abundance.
I find that encouraging.
The idea that there are still people out there penning kind thoughts, funny greetings and words of consolation is amazing.
Frankly, there are more forms of endeavour in the world than any of us can imagine.
There are people who make the handles of objects ergonomically better.
There are people who design additives to the paint on your car so it sparkles instead of causing a potentially traffic accident inducing glare.
There are people who make smaller air conditioners that cool larger rooms.
There are people who make fabrics softer, lighter and more climate-compatible.
There are people who do things that we don’t even know are happening so that stuff can be made that we all take for granted every single day.
Amazing things occur all around us and we don’t even know.
Such people richly deserve a greeting card to thank them for making the world a little better for the rest of us each and every day.
Save Them For Funerals
Don’t send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed. ~P. J. O’Rourke
So, I’m still really busy at work and it’s sucking up a lot of my mental bandwidth. Fortunately, I still have the weekends to work on The Sentinels.
A colleague of mine asked me if I use AI to help me write my books. The answer is yes. ChatGPT is a whiz at helping me with character development and research.
As with any other source, one needs to do additional research to corroborate. I’m not taking this thing’s word as gospel, but it sure is helpful. It did bring up some points I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. In that respect, it’s utterly invaluable.
I also have a number of plug-ins that fit a loose definition of AI that have become so seamless and innocuous that they barely register. ProWritingAid gives me passive prompts in the form of underlines when something is misspelled or agrammatical. It also renders little popups when something is really jacked up.
It’s getting better all the time, but I’m not always satisfied with the results.
I walked through a series of prompts to develop a book using the Snowflake Method. Even though the sequence ran admirably, I wasn’t feeling the story it outlined for me. It might work just fine for people who are more strictly outliners/plotters, but it wasn’t giving me the right feeling.
Whether digital or analog, tools are simply tools. Granted, ChatGPT is more convenient than rifling through a set of encyclopedias. Image search engines are more convenient than digging through a lifetime subscription to National Geographic or Time magazine. Either way, they’re merely a means to an end. Ultimately, it’s the creator’s job to create.
Even with the best and most accommodating toolsets, it’s still the craftsman who makes the magic happen. Until further notice, creativity is solely the domain of humanity. So, I’m not too worried about AI intruding on my chosen form of creative expression.
Maybe I’ll have it write a card for Kelly. The thing with ChatGPT or other AI engines is that they depend on a prompt. The more specific and detailed the prompt, the better the result.
For instance, write a romantic message in greeting card format will get me the following result:
Front Cover:
A delicate illustration of two intertwined hearts, softly shaded in hues of pink and red against a backdrop of a golden sunset. The subtle glow of the setting sun bathes the scene in a warm, inviting light, setting the tone for the heartfelt message within. Inside Left:
A poem, gracefully written in elegant script:
“In every beat, in every breath,
Your love guides me, a light so deft.
Through every storm, through every night,
In your arms, the world feels right.”Inside Right:
“Dearest [Name],
With each day that passes, my love for you grows deeper and more profound. You are not just my partner but my best friend, my confidante, and the light of my life. Your laughter is my favorite melody, and your smile, my greatest treasure.
Thank you for being you — for sharing your love with me, for inspiring me to accept myself, for helping me see the unique beauty in imperfection, for showing me that love is something you do; something not just to be said, but also to be shown.
I am immeasurably grateful for all the laughter, joy, and peace you have brought into my life. As we continue to navigate the journey of life side by side, I look forward to all the love, adventures, and memories that lie ahead of us.
With all my love and affection, now and forever,
[Your Name]”
Feel free to personalize this template with specific details about your relationship and shared memories to make it even more special!
Not to shabby for a basic request. Right?
On the other hand, if I ask it to write a romantic message to the woman who has been the light of my life and full time inspiration for 33½ years, who is the devoted mother of our four children, who works tirelessly to make our house a home, who brings joy and laughter with her wherever she goes, who is beautiful inside and out, who I will love unconditionally forever and always in greeting card format then it will provide me something like this:
Front Cover:
An exquisite illustration of a timeless garden at dusk, where lanterns hanging from ancient trees bathe the scene in a soft, romantic glow. Amidst the blooms, a path leads to a cozy bench, symbolizing a journey shared and a love that has grown more beautiful with time. Inside Left:
A heartfelt poem, penned in a script that flows like the melody of a love long cherished:
“For thirty-three years and a half, my dear,
Our love has blossomed, ever so clear.
Through seasons of joy, through times of test,
Beside you, my heart has found its rest.A garden of love, we’ve tended with care,
With laughter and joy, beyond compare.
Four precious blooms, together we’ve raised,
In a home of warmth, our lives interlaced.”Inside Right:
“To the woman who illuminates my every day, my constant source of inspiration,
For 33½ years, you have been the unwavering light of my life, the devoted mother to our beautiful children, and the heart that makes our house a home. Your tireless dedication, your boundless joy and laughter, and the beauty that radiates from within you, have been my guiding stars.
Every moment with you is a treasure, a testament to the love that grows deeper and more profound with each passing day. You are not just the love of my life but the soul of our family, the beacon of our home.
Thank you for being the incredible person you are, for the love you give, the strength you show, and the beauty you bring into our lives. As we continue this journey together, know that my love for you is eternal, unwavering, and as boundless as the skies.
With all the love in my heart, now and forever,
[Your Name]”
This message is a celebration of your enduring love and partnership. Feel free to add personal anecdotes or memories that reflect your journey together to make this greeting even more unique and heartfelt.
That’s better. Right? Specificity helps to polish the work.
Both are wonderfully gushing and romantic, but even the engine says you could (meaning should) spruce it up and make it yours. That’s the point. It’s a tool. It serves as a point of departure.
As for the notion of AI taking jobs and whatnot, it’s the typesetter’s dilemma. Work is about doing stuff that needs doing.
At some time in the past, people traveled in horse-drawn buggies. The way you got the horse to go faster was to crack your buggy whip. In order for that to work, somebody had to make a buggy whip for you to buy. When we stopped driving buggies and started driving cars, all of those poor buggy whip artisans were thrown into the streets to languish in poverty and destitution.
Right?
No, not really. When the buggy whip shop closed up, they went to work on Henry Ford’s assembly lines or in any of the support industries for the new automotive industry.
The same with typesetters. Back in the day, monks spent lifetimes copying texts by hand in scriptoriums. This gave way to the Gutenberg printing press in 1440. It was bleeding edge technology that put a whole monastery’s worth of scribes to shame. For centuries, the technology improved, but you still had the same basic skill set of people arranging letters for a manual or automated press to crank out a run of newspapers or a stack of books. Until the digital age, people were doing much the same thing as had been done since before Columbus arrived in the Bahamas.
Are they all out on their asses?
No, not really. They learned how to do layouts digitally and could do what they used to do manually far more quickly, efficiently and creatively.
I’m old enough to remember typing on an electric typewriter. There was the advantage of being able to backtype and make use of the white-out strip on the ribbon. Depending on how closely you paid attention to what you were typing, you might wind up with a pristine typed page or something so crusty with correction goop that it might smear when handled. It was kind of harrowing, really.
Suddenly, there’s digital word processing. There’s cut & paste. There’s on demand formatting. There’s incredible freedom.
That’s the whole point of progress. Progress doesn’t kill jobs. Progress opens up opportunities to do things better, more efficiently and more beneficially.
So, if nifty new tools come along that help you get more done in less time, that’s progress. It’s not the AI-pocalypse. It’s the next step in a better world.
Don’t worry. Be happy. The groundhog was right. The sun is shining. The days are warming. Better days are ahead of us. Believe that.
That’s it for this midwinter Hump Day. I’m plenty busy at work and I owe my wife a nice card to tell her how much she means to me.