There are some objects I have in my possession which I treasure. Not because they have some intrinsic monetary value, but because they were given to me by somebody important to me.<\/p>\n
Such an object might be a gift from an old friend, or a favorite uncle. Perhaps it was from someone I have not seen in years, or who has sadly passed away.<\/p>\n
In each case, the thing I hold in my hand represents the person, in an oddly powerful way. The object serves as a kind of proxy, a totem of the bond between us.<\/p>\n
Our society has now entered a time when people are physically separated, not by choice but rather by sad circumstance. I wonder whether that will have an effect on the gifting of physical objects.<\/p>\n
We may end up developing a greater craving for such objects, and a new renewed appreciation for their power. When we can no longer experience the physical comfort of the person they represent, such objects might end up having an even greater value.<\/p>\n
Eventually, if this forced separation persists, our society might develop a new emotional economy around the exchange of symbolic physical objects. It would be but a pale echo of what was lost, yet an echo with the power to resonate in our hearts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are some objects I have in my possession which I treasure. Not because they have some intrinsic monetary value, but because they were given to me by somebody important to me. Such an object might be a gift from an old friend, or a favorite uncle. Perhaps it was from someone I have not … Continue reading “The gifting of physical objects”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22669"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22670,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22669\/revisions\/22670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}