good morning Hank it's Tuesday I've
often heard economist criticized
gift-giving for its massive inefficiency
which is fair enough something like
three billion dollars in gift cards goes
unspent every year in the United States
really we'd all be better off just
giving each other cash but that seems
thoughtless so instead aunt Agatha gives
us a gift card to Outback Steakhouse
every Christmas because 23 years ago we
mentioned to aunt Agatha in passing that
we enjoyed a bloomin onion now and then
other times people do get you an actual
physical gift like a sweater or
something but it doesn't fit and so
you've got to return it and get a
different size which is inefficient or
it does fit and it's hideous so you
don't wear it very often which is also
inefficient now my wife Sarah has solved
this problem brilliantly because every
year for Christmas she gets me a
Liverpool Jersey which is exactly what I
want
but of course cold calculations of
economic efficiency ignore much of the
value of gifts right like Hank when you
got me that Aero fighters video game
machine it meant so much to me much more
than if you'd given me a check for the
amount it cost you and told me to buy my
own arrow fighters then there are gifts
like this world on a turtle which my
parents gave to me and which means a lot
because of its symbolic resonances
that's why I keep it right over here Oh
God
everything's fine BOM the world is still
on the turtle but there's also another
upside to gift-giving which is that
occasionally not usually but
occasionally you get something you
didn't know you needed but that
nonetheless changes your life for the
better like a few years ago Mike
Rugnetta gave me the book the body in
pain by Elaine Scarry which I never
would have otherwise read and which
totally changed the way I think about
pain and the relationship between pain
and language and if it hadn't been for
that gift I might not have written
Turtles all the way down and then I
might never have gotten that world on a
turtle plus there's the whole reddit
Secret Santa thing so every year I sign
up for the reddit Secret Santa Exchange
in which you are paired with two random
people one of whom you give a gift to
and the other of whom gives a gift to
you like this year I gave a gift to a
college student in Oregon and I received
a gift from a guy in Pennsylvania who
just happens to be a nerdfighter and in
addition to getting me a $100 donation
to Partners in Health he got me a
weighted blanket I was immediately
attracted to this weighted blanket
because on the pack
it said people who cannot move the
blanket cannot use the blanket which is
one of the most beautiful sentences I
have ever encountered like ultimately
that's the reason I had to stop using
Twitter because I couldn't move it but
anyway I opened up this blanket which
weighs like 25 pounds and wrapped it
around myself while watching soccer and
it was amazing and then later in the day
Sarah was like cool blanket can I try it
and then the kids were like hey do they
make those blankets in kids sizes and
that is how we ended up with four
weighted blankets in our family I'm
holding like 70 pounds of weighted
blanket right now this person in
Pennsylvania who does not know me
somehow knew exactly what our family
needed to make it through the frigid
winter in Indianapolis where the
perpetually gray sky is extremely close
to the ground this blanket is just the
right amount of warm and just the right
amount of heavy it makes me feel like
ever so slightly swaddled I love this
blanket so much I don't even want a
brand deal with it because that would
Sully the beautiful and innocent
relationship we have now I'm sure there
are reasons why weighted blankets are
terrible or whatever but please do not
share them with me because the blanket
is easing my travel through this veil of
Tears and I don't want to have that
ruined
so yes gift-giving is irrational and
inefficient but gifts can be a gesture
of goodwill they can help you feel less
alone and occasionally they can even
make your life better by helping you
feel warm and safe in the long and
lightless winter and if that's the cost
of unused gift cards I think it might be
worth it so thank you to my Secret Santa
and Hank I will see you on Friday
PS you'll never guess what you're
getting for your birthday it's a it's a
weighted blanket