I Lost My favorite wooden fan

 

          

Steep's 龍井綠茶 (Longjing Green Tea) 

(rating: 3.4/5) Undertones of grain, mung bean, and pine nut give it an astringently unique mellow taste. Upon initial tasting it has a background of a light roast and pleasantly nutty, but still on the fresher side of teas 

My first week of July was spent in Washington D.C., working for the Smithsonian Museum. During this time, I also happened to lose my favorite wooden fan at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. I most likely dropped it in a futile attempt to cool myself while working the outdoor site and I was initially heartbroken over losing such a cherished possession. I however came to a very important realization: 

To make something lasting, we must protect it, not only from time, but also from ourselves. We often denounce the disposability of modern objects for their fleeting shelf lives, but I think this is only partly true. Lack of durability in our favorite possessions actually has very little to do with their susceptibility to physical decay. Losing that fan felt like an erasure of memory, for it held a special permanence to me that blurred the lines between utility and decor. Yet, in the moment of its loss, I realized the necessity of losing the necessity for material possessions. We live in a world where even plastic has a prescribed end and the material world's forced obsolescence mirrors our own need for constant renewal. The digital realm, with its ceaseless demands for updates and upgrades, mimics our struggle against said obsolescence. 

 Although objects stabilise human life insofar as they give it a continuity, during our pursuit of constant information, we lose the meaning of true possession and knowledge. We communicate incessantly without building real community, save data without preserving memories, and accumulate virtual friends without meaningful encounters.  The loss of my fan was a necessary metaphorical sacrifice, a re-education on the beauty of loss and allowing me to fully absorb a wonderful cultural experience. The same way children’s curiosity compensates for their inexperience and the wisdom of the old compensates for their frailty, we find strength in the things we cannot hold onto. The Folklife Festival will serve to exist in my memory as proof of existence for culture's vitality. It’s often said that the most valuable of contemporary commodities is time. If this is true, then the rarest luxury of all is perspective, which comes from an abundance of time. To obtain it, one must live outside of material posessions, which is to say outside of history, and the only people who can afford do so are those who revive their communities.

I have never felt more peaceful, intentful, and humble to absorb the wisdom from the indigenous artists and academic professionals at the Smithsonian. I felt a certain presence that sought to heal me by urging me to seek the beauty that exists within cultures.