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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Why should I shop till I drop?

A better question: Why would I shop till I drop?

An even better question: Why would a store want me to drop?

Perhaps I am dropping to the basement, where there is a special sale? A nutrition stand where I will be given an infusion to give me a second shopping wind?

Because otherwise, how does my dropping benefit the store? Why does not the store realize that if I drop, I will not be able to come back tomorrow?

And I wonder- who was the first to tell potential costumers to drop?

The honest truth is that sometimes after going shopping, I do feel like I want to drop. But I’ve never been like “Wow! I haven’t dropped today- but I’m almost there! Maybe I’ll go shopping tomorrow and see if I can actually drop this time!” Usually, it’s more like “I don’t care if I have to sew together bedsheets in order to make a shirt. I am never going shopping again.”

I do enjoy shopping sometimes- for example, put me in a backpacking gear store and I’m in heaven. Book stores are great, too. And music stores? Ask my wife how hard it is to convince me not to buy the whole store. But these are the few shopping opportunities in which I do not wish to drop.

Ikea in Oslo actually took shop till you drop to a new level, and in order to facilitate easy dropping, provides beds for customers who are tired in the middle of their shopping day.

City-life sometimes encourages us to “shop lest we drop,” i.e., shop to stay happy, or to “shop when we drop,” i.e., shop to cheer us when we’re sad (with shopping representing the unlikely (absurd?) savior of a lagging self-confidence.

One might implicate consumerism in global climate change and the dwindling potential for human survival- and therefore argue that we have shopped and as a result, have dropped, or are dropping. I recently saw a sustainability-minded site asking the very question, “Why shop till you drop?”

But I’m venturing a guess when I say that the mall is not implicating us in global climate change when they tell us to shop till we drop.

And yet, shopping-dropping is still often employed to describe the consumer experience (”shop till you drop” lands 799,000 hits on Google). Fascinatingly enough, there is a shopuntilyoudrop.net, which pays people to shop and review purchases. I wonder if there is an insurance policy if I sign up and actually drop.

So I leave this post without having figured out the mystery of shop till you drop.

But as a pretty word-obsessed human, I am going to deposit these shop-drop thoughts into my bank of nutty phrases, ponder the fact that we describe shopping with such a sense of urgency and continue to try and be more accurate with my words.

I will take advantage of this momentary inspiration to commit once again: Besides not telling people to drop, I will be careful with the following: I will not say that I am starving when I had a meal three or six hours ago, I will not say “I’m dead” when I accidentally misplace a document from work, and I will not call myself retarded when I find a typo in one of these blog posts.

Words will be a theme I return to often in Unpacked- without trying, words come up, in and out of my mind uncontrollably. I have been like that for a long time, but even more so since our trek. So I’ll continue to share. Conscious words represent a conscious mind, and whether advertising, writing a letter or an email or speaking with friends, speech is a direct reflection of our measures of individual, national and global integrity.

So if you’ll excuse me, I think I will run to an advertising agency to present my new phrase, Shop till you’re done.

It might not have the punch of shop till you drop, but it makes no suggestion that we expire, and rhyming is overrated, anyway.

I know there are tons of ridiculous ways in which we describe things. Can you think of any more? The same way political correctness refines speech-patterns into thought-patterns into action-patterns, refining inaccurate or insensitive phrasing makes us better, too. Please share!

I am always very excited to go to the bathroom these days.

The bathroom, you see, is where we keep Bill Bryson. (more…)

There is a Jewish tradition that God created the world with ten sentences.

Imagine that. Ten sentences, an entire world.

Those of you who are skilled in both math and linguistics, might have noticed that I am already in my fourth sentence. I do believe that I have created in you the sense of “where is this going?”- but compared with God’s first four sentences, in which He created light and dark, heaven and earth and probably more, I’m feeling pretty lame.

Now granted, God has the whole All-powerful thing going for Him. I gather that that’s a handy attribute when it comes to creating. So I don’t feel that bad that God is a better creator than I am.

But Jewish tradition also maintains that humans can, and are supposed to imitate God. And perhaps the most Godly of our human capabilities is speech. When we speak, our words create, too. (more…)

I would like to tell you of the tea that steeps peacefully before me. Like most things of apparent insignificance, this tea contains within it depth beyond measure.

The tea, a Tazo tea called “Om,” is a blend of green and black teas, imbued, according to Tazo, with the “spirit and taste of the high Himalayas.” I am not familiar with the spirit and taste of the high Himalayas, but I can recommend it with a touch of lemon and honey.

The tea’s paper encasing explains the name, Om, with the following: “The word Om is frequently seen on prayer wheels, stones and flags as you walk through the Himalayas. To merely say it releases a vibration of peace. Imagine what happens when you drink it.”

Let us leave Om for just a moment.

For six months, Chana and I walked. As our walk unfolded, so did the following understanding between us: If I don’t feel like speaking right now, I won’t. If you don’t feel like speaking right now, I won’t pressure you. The result was twofold:

1-Comfortable Silence: We could comfortably absorb our surroundings, relive a conversation in our heads, contemplate something, not think about anything and/or simply enjoy silence for the sake of silence.

2-Real Conversation: Because we didn’t feel compelled to speak, we had real conversations. We spoke lightly and we spoke intensely. But no matter what the conversation, we were fully committed. (more…)