A Gratitude For Non-Living Friends
A Gear in Need is A Friend Indeed
My internet was down last week. The First day was a disaster. On the second day, I saw the lights on my router blinking. Then it was off again. I touched it gently, full of hope saying: I need you, I work from home. It blinked some more before giving rise to all the signals back on.
My router took me back into the global net, as it always does.
The Contributors for Life
A coincidence, surely, but sometimes I imagine devices are not merely soulless entities. I imagine it listened to me, understand me.
They are from the beginning made to contribute their life, body and soul, especially, to us humans.
Gear, devices, equipment, tools vehicles. Router, modems, Bikes, cars, carts, trolley, knife, spoon, laptop, handphone. So many of them.
Always there to facilitate our life.
They are made of visions
They are not only branded stuff to define our status.
They are not only utilities for us to use. Once with you, they turned into life. Your life. It might be your work, office. your family, food, your home. Or simply your hobby,
They are made of visions of people who have contributed minds, works, live to make every functional. The makers and inventors who think about the need and life of people, the users.
Since the beginning of our species, our ancestors had invented tools over tools in the savannah or caves. Before and after the invention of fire: for survival, to make life easier.
The tools and users verify their makers and users.
Many devices are helpful, yet we never give them respect at the same level as we respect our pets.
As I give names to my dogs and cats, I never did to my bikes or router.
My Blue story
Except for Blue. Blue is my twenty years old van.
Blue has been together with me on thousands of km road trips.
Sometimes tens of hours to remote places, where there was only blue and me. I talk to her like a friend to a friend.
I am so grateful for her.
We "talk" to each other like Wilson the ball and Tom Hanks on a deserted island, in the film Cast Away.
Blue is currently staying in a garage, waiting for a fate. She is now old and broken, but I still have my love for her so dearly. Once she get fully rejuvenated, another wonder would come. We hit the road, Blue and me. Again.
I love to imagine our gear, tools, appliances are not soulless. Their body and spirit are all dedicated to us humans.
They are always with us until the day of their breakdown, or when their irrelevance approaches.
Such as my old Eastern Germany Practika camera, which helped me in the days of analogue photography. I still keep it. Although their time has gone after the digital days. But never forgotten.
Old classic bikes, grandfather's clock, some chandeliers are never old.
Some other things create stories. Like weapons of the olden year's knights and kings. Excalibur, for instance, is the mythological sword of Arthur that defined Camelot.
Some other things went shortly without stories. As if they meant to be forgotten, some socks, paper, toothbrush or cigarette.
Respect
Some are memorable some are forgettable. Yet I believe the feeling of respect and gratitude to things, the old and new, is utterly important.
This civilization is always in the mode of buy, use and dump: to use and to forget. We need to learn to respect our non-living beings.
Respect for our gears would help us, also, to respect our planet. How could she not be treated as an organism? Also, our fellow humans. People are not living gear to be utilised and then forgotten.
I will end this story with my affirmation of gratitude, for gears and the helpful non-living being around me. Plus, the people behind them, who have contributed wonderful works and love.
Thank you for all the devices in my life
Thank you roadblocks
Thank you gate and doors
Thank you windows
Thank you fences
Thank you
Thanks, pencils and pens
Thank you typewriters
Thanks, cellphones
Thank you smartphones
Thank you software and applications
Thank you desktops
Thank you iPad and tablet
Thank you laptops
Thank you books
Thank you notebooks
Thank you videocam
Thank you cameras
Thank you chairs
Thank you tables
Thank you wardrobes
Thanks, clothes
Thanks, socks
Thank you trousers
Thank you pants
Thank you hats
Thank you spoons
Thank you forks
Thank you plates
Thank you cups and glasses
Thank you bottles and jars
Thank you stove and pots
Thank you fridges
Thank you cables
Thank you beds
Thank you pillows
Thank you bedrooms
Thank you bathroom
Thank you cars
Thank you bikes
Thank you ropes
Thank you for being extensions of my body
Thank you for being extensions of my soul
Thank you
