when things work
i recently bought a new pepper grinder. it cost a little more than I would have liked to spend, but i wanted one that was well made and would last. i wanted it to grind pepper effortlessly, be reasonably sustainable in construction, and be a pleasant object to have around. (with little cupboard space, the pepper grinder would be a long-term counter friend.) when it arrived after a week from germany – smooth, lovely-to-hold bamboo, ceramic works – it smelled of pepper even as i unpacked it, despite the absence of any little corns.
i was not prepared for the delight i felt when i used it the first time. after funneling in the black peppercorns and adjusting the grind setting, i gave it a firm twist. the top and bottom sections moved easily, sprinkling abundant and fragrant flecks over my salad, and satisfying my hands with their shape, temperature, and organic smoothness. and i thought, “maybe the world isn't all that bad.”
it got me thinking.
five years ago, give or take, before the pandemic times set in, i bought a refillable soap dispenser for the bathroom that made me happy every time i washed my hands. it turned liquid peppermint castile soap into a rich mousse, leaving my hands feeling charmingly clean and fresh. yes, charmingly.
and that got me thinking a bit more.
i started thinking about the degradation of material objects and the degradation of life more generally and how those two things might be connected. if you force people to accept a bunch of crap that doesn't work or fails quickly, and if you take away the ability to repair broken things, eventually you might just get people to transfer that acceptance to other aspects of life. lay the groundwork with material commercial trash and prepare the populace to accept the breakdown of civil society a little more easily, with a little less resistance or expectation that society shouldn't be this way and there's something to be done about it. it's just a few more steps from this learned helplessness to the disinformation/misinformation machine powering the bubble-driven, conspiracy-laden world views that enthusiastically roll out the red carpet to welcome tyrannical leaders.
i remember when the world when material goods on offer were a little less shitty. appliances were reasonably reliable and long-lived. often you could repair things that were broken – or find someone else who could. sure, we had useless paper straws, but the ocean wasn't full of plastic. if wore the same clothing items year after year, and could often give them away after years in still-wearable condition.
i remember going into shoe stores and receiving full service. going into department stores and being asked if i needed assistance. finding my size in stock. being able to try clothes on before buying. when making multiple phone calls to resolve a service issue – or waiting an hour or more on hold – was an infuriating novelty.
i remember a few times when political corruption was considered unacceptable by a majority of my fellow citizens and by our government institutions. when a sitting president could be forced out of office.
i remember when employers sent rejection letters to applicants. when friends could call each other on the phone without an appointment. when there wasn't so much isolation and loneliness.
this is starting to sound like one of those awful “when i was kid we drank from the garden hose and we all lived to tell about it” posts. but really, it's hard to interpret the present if you haven't seen the past. i'm not saying the past was great or even better. i'm saying that there are certain things we had for a while and lost.
when i first moved to the community where i've lived for the past 25 years, i checked out a library book about the history of the place. i read accounts from the 1800s describing the sky as black with birds. surely we do not see such large avian populations here now. 20 years when i moved into my current home, a certain few trees attracted red-winged blackbirds every january. year after year i would walk a route that passed those trees just to listen to their trills. but the red-winged blackbirds don't come anymore. and if you've only lived here for 10 years, you'd never know there were here, or what a delight it was to hear their lively chattering in the trees. and you might not think about what their absence could mean.
it's essential to understand what we had and what we've lost.
a couple of weeks ago i walked into an indie-owned hardware store, approached a staffed service desk to ask which aisle to visit for bathtub caulk. i received an escort and some tailored advice and was out the door in less than 10 minutes, which was all the time i had that day. leaving that store, all my stress melted away. i'd thought it would be difficult to accomplish the task in the time i had. i i'd been forced to go somewhere like home depot, it would have been impossible. i remember reflecting on how absurdly happy i felt in that moment. and how that all came down to minimized friction in trying to accomplish a simple and necessary task. and how rare that is. and how intentional that likely is. and how fucked that is.
i'd like to believe that if we could change that – make visits to the store work, make everyday things work and last – maybe we could change so much more socially and politically. but there's an element of putting the cart before the horse here. there's the ongoing contribution of multinational corporations to consider, and the profit-driven, destruction-oriented ethos of global economics, etc., but no need to go into all that here. that's not my point.
i'm just thinking, what if we all had just a few things in our lives – things we interacted with regularly – that actually worked? objects, services, relationships. great service. care. what would it take to re-create the expectation that the world should work? that we should not give in to crap, corruption, and dereliction of duty?
material things seem like a place to start. it's where many of us have the most control. being more intentional about what we buy, to the best of our ability. saying no when possible to throw-away culture.
even if it's only one object. even if it costs a little more than is comfortable. and maybe gifting something like this to someone else in our sphere who might not have the means.
as i'm typing this, it sounds absurd even to me. and yet i think there's perhaps a role for a phenomenological healing of the hopelessness and despair caused by the world we interact with every day.