PG-13 Warning. This isn’t the norm—just testing the cult of Shinners. Future episodes stay true to our Bach tradition. Enjoyed this? Do you want some more of my originals mixed in with your weekly Bach?
Literally Can't Thank You Enough in Advance
I try to “bear the burden of bitterness which experience forces on us with as much uncomplaining dignity as strength will allow” as restaurants around me tell me to eat beautiful, as any person who pockets their phone to listen is crowned empathetic, as those who literally died walk among us. Language evolves. Oh well.
Still, there has got to be something to the way we shift around our words, carefully wringing any sentiment out of the last remaining fabric of a once powerful tongue. We no longer feel with our words. We miss out on basic communication. We’ve lost even the ability to thank and receive thanks:
Once, we said, you're welcome. Now we say, no problem. I don’t really mind: other languages have de nada, de rien. But something happens in our psychology when one goes from feeling welcome, to not a problem. Once, we were welcome, now we’re …simply not a pest. Fine, can you blame us? What modern human has time to make anyone feel welcome? I just feel bad for the re-printings of all the phrasebooks, textbooks, tourist maps, dictionaries, flashcards, everything that now has to change you're welcome to no problem. Surely, the truest way to show you’re a foreigner is to say you're welcome.
That’s receiving thanks, how about giving it?
For starters, there’s thank you in advance. Have you ever been thanked in advance? How did that feel? I recently got a request from someone asking to stay at my house — thanking me in advance. I wonder if she was equally thankful when I said, no thanks. Thanking people in advance is holding them hostage, so when someone thanks me in advance I tell them to get f****d on short notice.
Then there’s, I can’t thank you enough. This has got to be one of the weakest sentiments ever uttered. When I hear this, I note the lack of any real thanks in the first place. I can't thank you enough reminds me of that eerie phrase in the business, said just before you agree to play for free, “And you know, Mr. Shinners, we just couldn’t possibly pay you enough…”
I can't thank you enough.Really? Have you tried?Tried what?Thanking me.…thanking you?Yeah, sure, go ahead and try.…oh… thank you…Okay. That's enough.
You can't thank me enough? What am I, a sultan? I can't thank you enough is an outgrowth of our desire to over-blow sentiment to the point where anything— especially a meal— could be compared to the profound. Amazing brunch. It’s the same sentiment as the best thing ever. So many people I know have experienced the best thing ever. Poor folks… if I had experienced the best thing ever, my life would thereafter seem empty, down-hill, constantly in pursuit of that once happier moment. Going immediately to the superlatives in our language leaves no room for improvement, and once again, we’ve exhausted our expressive power on lunch.
Having an occasion where one couldn’t thank enough seems to be reserved for the Cherokee Chief who pulls your drowning family out of a freezing river and nurses them back to health. Maybe then you couldn’t find enough thanks.
… in the room, dim light and steam. Under his dark hair I could see his hands, working tirelessly, deftly. My daughter, blue around the lips and limp, lay at the man’s knee: it had been two days since she had moved. I had no hope, perhaps I already resigned her to a frozen fate. At last, as if cued by his movements, as if rising with the steam, she opened her eyes, restored to life. Tears flowed from her eyes, and then from mine. The Chief kept his gaze fixed on her chest, focused on her breathing. I was at a loss. Finally, he relaxed his hands and sank away from her, as if his own life had left him and became hers.
I turned my wet eyes to the Chief and uttered, ‘Sir… my dear man, were I to thank you every day until I die, I would still feel that I cannot thank you enough.
No problem. Said he.
Notes:
The opening quote: “bear the burden of bitterness which experience forces on us with as much uncomplaining dignity as strength will allow” is from one of the essays I live by: Phillip Lopate: Against Joie de Vivre: Personal Essays. Poseidon Press, 1986.
The closing music is my teacher, the great Jerome Lowenthal, playing Liszt’s Christmas Tree.
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