I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O. box at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has never believed in email, in Facebook, in texting or cell phones in general. And so while other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by the mailbox to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was a little frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking for some sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.
Isha nje nder te vetmit studente ne universitet qe e kishte nje arsye per te kontrolluar posten cdo dite, dhe kjo sepse nena ime nuk ka besuar kurre ne email, Facebook, mesazhe apo celulare. Dhe, ndersa studentet e tjere shkembenin mesazhe celulari me prinderit e tyre, une prisja prane deres se postes per te marre leter nga shtepia se si kish kaluar fundjava, c'ka ishte frustruese kur gjyshja ishte e shtruar ne spital, dhe une rrija e prisja per ca fjali, leter me shkrim dore nga mami im.
And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completely sucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written me for strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens of them. I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N., everywhere. I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary, and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for a hand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked. Overnight, my inbox morphed into this harbor of heartbreak -- a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barely even knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them a reason to wait by the mailbox.
Dhe, kur leviza ne New York pas universitetit dhe pata momente depresioni, bera te vetmen gje qe mund te mendoja atehere. Shkrova te njejtat letra qe me kish shkruar ime me per te huajt, dhe i ngjita ngado ne qytet, dhjetra e dhjetra prej tyre. I vendosa ngado, neper kafe, librari, ne OKB, gjithkund. Bera bllog rreth kesaj eksperinence cdo dite kur ishte e nevojshme, dhe bera nje premtim te cmendur ne internet: nqs me kerkoni nje leter me shkrim, do jua shkruaja nje, pas asnje dyshim. Gjate nates, inboksi u mbyt me mesazhe-- nje nene e vetme ne Sakramento, nje vajze te cilen e tallnin shoket e klases ne fshatrat e Kansasit, te gjithe duke me pyetur, nje vajze 22 vjecare qe as te porosiste nje kafe nuk dinte, ti shkruaja nje leter dashurie dhe ti jepja nje arsye per te pritur ne kutine postare.
Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips to the mailbox, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like never before to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most of all, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled with the scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangers not because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, but because they have found one another by way of letter-writing.
Epo, sot une jam gjeneratori i nje organizate qe karikohet me ato udhetime ne poste, nga menyrat se si mund te shtyjme mediat sociale si kurre me pare per te skruar dhe derguar letra te panjohurve kur me shume kane nevoje, por mbi te gjitha, karikuar me ate arke letrash si kjo, arka ime e besuar, mbushur me shkrimin e njerezve te zakonshem, te huaj qe i shkruajne letra te huajve jo sepse ato do te takohen ndonjehere dhe do qeshin me nje filxhan kafe para tyre, por sepse e kane gjetur njeri-tjetrin nepermjet ketyre letrave.
But, you know, the thing that always gets me about these letters is that most of them have been written by people that have never known themselves loved on a piece of paper. They could not tell you about the ink of their own love letters. They're the ones from my generation, the ones of us that have grown up into a world where everything is paperless, and where some of our best conversations have happened upon a screen. We have learned to diary our pain onto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in 140 characters or less.
Por, ato gjera qe me bejne me shume pershtypje mbi keto letra, eshte qe pjesa me e madhe e tyre eshte shkruar nga njerez qe nuk e kane ndjere veten kurre te dashuruar ne nje leter. Ata nuk mund te te thone asgje per bojen e letrave te tyre te dashurise. Ato jane gjenerata ime, ne qe jemi rritur ne nje bote, ku gjithcka eshte pa leter, dhe ku disa nga bisedat tona me te bukura kane ndodhur mbi nje ekran. Kemi mesuar te perdorim Facebook-un si ditar i dhimbjes sone, dhe flasim kuptueshem me me pak se 140 germa.
But what if it's not about efficiency this time? I was on the subway yesterday with this mail crate, which is a conversation starter, let me tell you. If you ever need one, just carry one of these. (Laughter) And a man just stared at me, and he was like, "Well, why don't you use the Internet?" And I thought, "Well, sir, I am not a strategist, nor am I specialist. I am merely a storyteller." And so I could tell you about a woman whose husband has just come home from Afghanistan, and she is having a hard time unearthing this thing called conversation, and so she tucks love letters throughout the house as a way to say, "Come back to me. Find me when you can." Or a girl who decides that she is going to leave love letters around her campus in Dubuque, Iowa, only to find her efforts ripple-effected the next day when she walks out onto the quad and finds love letters hanging from the trees, tucked in the bushes and the benches. Or the man who decides that he is going to take his life, uses Facebook as a way to say goodbye to friends and family. Well, tonight he sleeps safely with a stack of letters just like this one tucked beneath his pillow, scripted by strangers who were there for him when.
Por cfare ndodh kur kete here nuk behet me fjale per eficence? Isha ne metro dje, me kete arke letrash, qe krijon biseda me te panjohur, garant. Nqs te nevojitet ndonjehere, mbaj nje si kjo. (Te qeshura) Nje burre po me shihte, dhe me tha, "Po, perse nuk perdorni internetin?" Dhe une mendova, "Epo, zoteri, une nuk jam nje strategjist, as specialist. Une jam vecse pak tregimtar." Mund t'ju tregoj per nje grua bashkeshorti i se ciles sapo ish kthyer nga Afganistani, dhe ajo po e kishte te veshtire te rifillonte ate gjene qe quhet bashkebisedim, dhe vendoste letra dashurie ngado ne shtepi si nje menyre per te thene, "Rikthehu tek une. Rigjeme kur te mundesh." Ose nje vajze e cila vendos te lere letra dashurie ne kampusin e Dubuque, Iowa, vetem per te gjetur qe perpjekja e saj gurgulloi diten e neserme dhe gjeti letra dashurie te varura gjithkund neper kampus nga pemet, neper shkurre a dege. Ose nje burre i cili donte te vriste veten, perdori Facebook si nje menyre per te thene mirupafshim miqve dhe familjes. Sot, i njejti burre, fle mire nen nje stok letrash poshte jastekut tamam si keto, shkruar nga te huaj qe i ishin prane ne ate moment.
These are the kinds of stories that convinced me that letter-writing will never again need to flip back her hair and talk about efficiency, because she is an art form now, all the parts of her, the signing, the scripting, the mailing, the doodles in the margins. The mere fact that somebody would even just sit down, pull out a piece of paper and think about someone the whole way through, with an intention that is so much harder to unearth when the browser is up and the iPhone is pinging and we've got six conversations rolling in at once, that is an art form that does not fall down to the Goliath of "get faster," no matter how many social networks we might join. We still clutch close these letters to our chest, to the words that speak louder than loud, when we turn pages into palettes to say the things that we have needed to say, the words that we have needed to write, to sisters and brothers and even to strangers, for far too long. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)
Keto jane ato histori qe me binden mua qe leter-shkruarjes nuk do ti duhet me kurre te perballet me dyshueshmerine e efikasitetit te saj, sepse eshte nje menyre arti tashme, c'do pjese e tyre, firma, shkrimi, dergimi i letrave, shkarravinat ne qoshe. Thjesht fakti qe dikush do merrte mundimin te ulej, te marre nje cope leter e te mendoje per dike gjate gjithe kohes, me nje qellim qe eshte shume me i madh se sa te nxjerrit ne drite kur shfletuesi shfaqet dhe IPhone nis fishkellen dhe ke gjashte biseda qe te shfaqen ne te njejten kohe, e cila eshte nje forme arti qe nuk zbret deri ne piken e "shpejto hapin," pa rendesi se e sa rrjeteve sociale mund te jemi pjese. Ne ende i shtrengojme fort ne gji ato letra, fjalet qe flasin me shume se fjalet, kur ne i kthejme faqet ne palete per ti thene gjerat qe kemi nevoje te themi, fjalet qe kemi nevoje ti shkruajme per nje kohe te gjate, motrave vllezerve, a ndoshta dhe te huajve. Faleminderit. (Duartrokitje) (Duartrokitje)