Unpacked: A Walker Returns Home

Condolences to the Kranzler family, whose Ipod died on their way to work this morning.

The Kranzlers will be sitting Shiva, the seven customary days of mourning, in their Jerusalem apartment this week. All are welcome to hear stories of music and downloads, harmonies and instrumentals. 

May we pray together for resurrection of the dead, when man and his deceased machines will rejoice together in Zion.

So what does it say about our culture that we relate to stuff’s expiration, in the same language as we do our own?

“My pen died.” “My phone died.” My stuff, died. Yesterday, I told the mechanic that our car died. Died?

It makes me think. When our car dies, who mourns its loss? Us? Yet-to-perish Renaults? Do all cars begin to think about taking functionality for granted, and start saying to each other, “You know, it really makes you think…”?

How will our car be judged in heavenly court? As the vehicle that takes us dependably to work, that hosts us comfortably in its breast, and provides us with air conditioning and pretty music? Would it be damned for fuel inefficiency, as the Hybrids gallop by on their way to heaven? When confronted by God about climate change, will our car be able to say “I was just following orders?”

Another question: When rechargeable batteries die, what spiritual force reenters them through the socket in the wall, bringing them back to us again? Should we not call them Reincarnate-able Batteries instead?

I’m not sure what we’re implying when we speak of things dying. Is it that they are as important to us as living things? Do we not appreciate actual death?

It’s ironic, really, to use a human-defining ability like language to humanize things not human.

I’d like to think that speaking of things dying is just a coincidence. That it neither reflects nor influences our perception of objects, or our understanding of life.

But I worry that I’m wrong.

Is the chopping down of the trees that make my paper, as disturbing to me as the temporary death of my cellphone?

Am I that bothered when billions of creatures and their ecosystems are destroyed to provide space and fuel to give life to the objects I call my own?

And when I speak of things dying all the time, every day- when I can make them come back to life so easily by plugging them into the wall or getting them fixed- will I understand or feel pain, when real people suffer or are killed all over the world?

In any case, the Kranzlers are okay, despite their Ipod running out of battery on their way to work. In fact, they welcome you to come and listen to music on their newly reincarnated Ipod, who they now believe to be a Gilgul (reincarnation) of a Walkman.

Come come all, as together we’ll celebrate the genius of real, live humans, and enjoy their ability to create really, really great things.

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