Why I detest leaf blowers

If I had to choose an object to describe the United States, I would say we are a leaf blower. I may sound silly when I make that statement, but I believe it's pretty spot on. What does a leaf blower do? It's supposed to make life easier by making yard work faster with less workers involved, but at what cost?

What do they actually do and how do people actually use them?

• They just blow everything from one person's yard into another's or the street.

• (Theoretically) you still have to scoop up all the yard waste, but most of the time, people just blow the debris somewhere outside their own bubble and call it quits.

• They're so loud that even the person using it should be wearing ear protection.

• They are just plain obnoxious.

So why do I compare leaf blowers to Americans? (For the record, I was born and raised in Virginia, but I keep referring to Americans as if I don't quite belong because I just cannot reconcile the hypocrisy of what we as a nation say we believe in, and then what we actually do. I can't exactly proclaim being proud of what we are right now.) Leaf blowers were invented to solve a problem for the person holding it, but without at all regarding anyone else around it. It's all bluster and no finesse. The United States we're currently dealing with is all bluster and no finesse. It's obsessive about rugged individualism, refusing to acknowledge the simple but all-important fact that we are all connected whether you like it or not. You can't use a leaf blower without contributing to noise pollution. When you opt to blow yard debris all over the place, you disturb everything around you including the very air you're breathing. You're tone deaf to everything and everyone else around you because you're only focused on your own little patch of land with its arbitrary, man-made boundaries. You have made a decision to speed things up, and to deprive yourself of the contemplative nature of a simple (yet still physically demanding) task. When you don't have hands on a rake, and you're not feeling the scrape of it against the ground, you further disconnect yourself from the very earth with which you should commune. We are all so focused on finding solutions that are quick and easy without considering the impact they have on the planet, on our neighbors, or even on ourselves.

We need to slow down and make time for doing such tasks in a meaningful, deliberately slow, and deliberately quiet way. It's become an act of rebellion and resistance to work with one's hands, to slow down, and to focus on doing something to the best of our ability, rather than to simply get it done and check it off our increasingly long to-do lists. We need to reclaim time and silence. Humans simply haven't evolved to deal with the fast-paced, disconnected, dispassionate world we've created, and there is great value in clawing back our time and our connection to one another.

What do you think?