There are roughly three New Yorks.
There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable.
Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night.
Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal.
It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.
And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company… .”
— E.B White “Here is New York” from Essays of E.B White. (via minusmanhattan)
Give the Gift of Your Attention
Everything is vying for our attention. EVERYTHING.
And in time, maybe we’ll train ourselves to become better at managing the hierarchy of distractions (infographic shoutout!) but in today’s world, the expectations are increasingly becoming that we’ll repond to everything, from wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
We bring our smart phones to bed. People use them in the bathroom (ew, but true). We hate turning them off when the plane is about to take off, and rush to turn them back on when we’ve landed.
Often it’s “too much to ask” to have someone turn off their phone when you’re spending time with them. There’s always the e-mail from work you’re expecting, that text message from a friend you’re meeting up with later, or an update email from a family member who’s going through a rough time. Now add in the mobile apps, status updates, comments, and checking in.
Bottom line: there’s a lot going on out there.
So when it comes down to giving a gift – there’s nothing more thoughtful or romantic than giving the gift of your full attention (that’s right- phone off).
Can you do it?
//Purchase The “Phonekerchief” via Uncommon Goods for $15
BONUS: how it works –
The Phonekerchief fabric is conductive (conducts electricity) because it is partially made up of silver fibers. When the fabric creates an unbroken enclosure (when it is wrapped tightly around a phone without any gaps), it creates a phenomenon that is known in science as a “Faraday Cage”. This means that any external static electrical field, such as a phone signal, will cause the electrical charges within the conducting fabric to redistribute themselves so as to cancel the field’s effects on what is inside. In order for the Phonekerchief to work effectively, the fabric must be wrapped tightly around the phone and create an unbroken enclosure.