Money and Gifts

"The urge to own grows as a natural response to an alienating ideology that severs felt connections and leaves us alone in the universe. When we exclude world from self, the tiny, lonely identity that remains has a voracious need to claim as much as possible of that lost beingness for its own. If all the world, all of life and earth, is no longer me, I can at least compensate by making it mine. Other separate selves do the same, so we live in a world of competition and omnipresent anxiety. It is built into our self-definition. This is the deficit of being, the deficit of soul, into which we are born."-Sacred Economics

What is the story of this gift economy? Recently I meet someone who offers to do a wonderful, deep healing hourlong consultation on the phone. Her group and website expresses ideas about the emerging return to a gift economy. Wow! This inspired me to think all sorts of things I could do for her. I feel more expansive and generous which leads to thinking of good things I could give. I get creative ideas I might have not thought of otherwise. I feel playful, and excited about cocreating a more beautiful world.. I feel thankful for my new friend.

So I decide to try it, and make an appointment with her. She then insists on being paid $150.00. Wow. Ok. I have money I could give her. But now I feel different. If I do this, I am hiring her for her services, she works for me, it will be a client customer relationship. I feel respectful and supportive toward this sister in her business and her stated need to 'do this for herself'. I wish her well, but the thrill of building a new and different story is gone.

Money is a neutral, not good or bad, just a method of exchange and value. But as my thought experiment shows me, feelings and attitudes about cash money certainly run deep! And when gifting is contrasted with selling, they invoke very different responses. One is open ended, creative, and relationship building, the other neatly sews up a transaction and sends us our separate ways, with our goods, services, or cash neatly tucked under our arm. 

Is one way better than another? Is the difference all that clearcut? Not always. Does the mere existence of the corrupted money system taint the way we think of gifts? I think so. But I think of the first response I had with my friend as 'new story', creative and fun. And my response to the insistence on cash, helping my friend to feel empowered in herself in her career, taking care of herself, and contending with the messed up way the world is out there, 'old story'.  

Who do I have, when someone is friendly to me for money? A friend? Just a friendly exchange.

"Perhaps money should only be used for that which is or should be standard, quantifiable, or generic; perhaps a different kind of money, or no money at all, should be involved in the circulation of those things that are personal and unique. We can only compare prices based on standard quantities; thus, when we receive more than that, something immeasurable, we have received a bonus, something we didn’t pay for. In other words, we have received a gift. To be sure, we can buy art, but we sense that if it is mere commodity, we pay too much; and if it is true art, we pay infinitely too little. Similarly, we can buy sex but not love; we can buy calories but not real nourishment."-Sacred Economics