King believes that the impulse to collect comes "partly from a wound we feel deep inside this richest, most materialistic of all societies." But he also considers other possibilities -- "It finds order in things, virtue in preservation, knowledge in obscurity, and above all it discovers and even creates value." His own fondness is for "the mute, meager, practically valueless object. ... What I like is the potency of the impotent thing, the renewed and adorable life I find in the dead and despised object." For him, there's "something in nothing." A lot of nothing.

"There are a lot of really great stories out there," said museum director/curator Karen Bachmann, "and time to share with the community."

Many definitions of distraction exist. An April report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, for example, describes three basic, unofficial categories: purposeful, incidental and uncontrolled.

My observation of people in general, not just my clients, is that we desperately want to take a break from our hectic, overscheduled lives--but not right now. Try it: Put down this magazine and do nothing at all for ten minutes. No planning, no worrying, no activity of any kind. Just ten minutes of empty time.

Did you do it?

I thought not.

After the salted yak butter tea had been served, the chief continued: "If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways. The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die. Mr. Greg, you must make time to share three cups of tea."

Perhaps owning a personal vehicle is a false entitlement that will become economically impossible for many of us in the near future. But something will need to fill the void.

Over a stove burning dung in the centre of the main room, Lhamotso boils a kettle of water to make yak-butter tea, a salty brew popular here. The television is the only appliance.

"I ... [ Read More (1.0k in body) ]