I love gifts as much as the next guy, but in my experience, gifting is fraught with peril. Peril #1: You must give gifts to those who give gifts to you, even if you barely know them. Peril #2: You must give gifts equal to or exceeding in value to gifts given to you. Peril #3: If you truly appreciate a gift, you must schlep it around with you for the rest of your life.
For me, Peril #3 is the sticking point. How long must I be shackled to all the stuff I’ve been lovingly given—the macaroni-encrusted pencil boxes, the itchy sweaters, the weird knick-knacks and goo-gaws? In their day such items were sweet, thoughtful gifts I truly treasured, but their day has passed. So now what? Send them to the landfill to be nestled amongst millions of tons of toxic waste for all eternity? That hardly seems like gratitude for gifts given with so much love.
Unfortunately, in my experience most people spend the first 3rd of their lives using other people’s stuff, the second 3rd acquiring stuff of their own, and the last 3rd trying to get rid of the stuff they accumulated. Because that’s the phase of life I’m in, it’s hard for me to encourage you to get more stuff to add to your personal debris pile.
But as stuff goes, books are pretty inoffensive. They can be re-gifted many times without losing value and they can be easily recycled, turning the well-thumbed pages into useful pulp. Even if a book ends up a-moldering in the landfill, the story it contained will still be safe and sound in someone’s head.
So it is with a clear conscience I urge you to go buy one more piece of stuff—The Spirit Keeper. Read it, pass it on to a loved one, donate it to charity, or bury it in your backyard between the rosebush & the begonias. In any case, the story will stick with you and, hopefully, remind you to enjoy the many perils of life.
Because, honestly, the perils are the best part.
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