Imagine for a Moment…
A New Paradigm, A New Neighborhood
Imagine with me for a moment. In your mind, see a small village or town, or even your own neighborhood. There are streets and houses and yards. You smell chocolate brownies baking, or maybe hamburgers sizzling on a grill. Dogs barking, children playing.
There are people of all different skills and abilities and hobbies and desires. And each of them are doing what makes their heart truly happy, what makes them smile, always knowing that their life is being spent in contribution to their neighbors and friends and even the world around them.
A REAL Community
There is a farmer, a carpenter, a dressmaker, a teacher. There is a mother of three who loves baking different kinds of bread and an older gentleman who gets so much joy from fishing or hunting.
The carpenter is repairing the teacher’s roof this week, and the teacher is instructing the farmer’s children. The farmer just harvested some corn and beans for the fisherman, and the the fisherman is catching the carpenter’s supper from the local stream right now.
And the only currency that is changing hands is Love.
Yes, this community is different. Instead of selling items to each other and paying taxes on every penny spent and driving off to a job they barely tolerate… before leaving their children for someone else to raise all day and returning home exhausted each evening… before returning home every Friday, too exhausted to even fully enjoy their weekend doing what they really want to do in their lives…
Instead of all these many things that we do…
They share with each other, among their friends and neighbors, the gift that they enjoy giving and doing every day of their lives.
This is the life they lead, and they love it.
They give the things they have made or for which they have worked according to what brings joy and meaning into their lives.
Why would someone do that for free?
Because they love it so much that they would be willing to do it for free. And so they do it. For free….
That is the underlying purpose of the Gift and its economic “system”.
But really. Why would someone do that? Why would a woman who loves to bake cakes just give the cakes away for free?
- Because it is her passion. She loves doing it so much that she gladly gives it away just to see others enjoy her gift as well. Do you remember how excited you get when someone else gets excited about your excitement? Imagine feeling that every day.
- Because it is a remembrance of her past receipt of gifts. Because she remembers that her neighbor, who loves to fish and gives his catch away for free, also gives her some fish each week for her family. And she wants to return the favor directly to him as a reciprocal gift.
- Because she wants to build her own social capital with individuals and the community at large for her future needs. The gift economy is about earning social currency, where no one can steal or tax or artificially deflate the power of her currency.
- Because she loves her neighbor as herself. She has established a real relationship with her neighbor and cares about her well-being. She didn’t just drive off to work and return home in the evening, remotely opening and closing her garage and never venturing outside, or even learning the names of her “neighbors”.
The Gift is used for personal gain and enjoyment, as well as for philanthropy; it is not merely an altruistic ideal. It is not pie in the sky. It is a REAL solution to our current situation.
True Freedom of the Gift
Because of the Gift, each person is able to work as much or as little as he wants in order to build his social capital or according to his true passion for his work or his neighbor. Each person is free.
Have you ever experienced a situation where you lost track of time because you were fully engaged and enjoying your work, what Cal Newport calls “Deep Work”? Not playing on your phone and accidently left the bathtub water running, but actual work? The other day, I was writing a blog post, and I completely lost track of time. I was writing for two and half hours, and I never even thought about the time.
In addition…
Have you ever noticed how creative and productive work is almost effortless? And of the highest quality? Someone who truly loves what he does is able to enter deep work, because he is fully immersed in it… because he loves it. He is completely engaged in his thoughts and actions.
Do you remember when you were younger and the community between neighbors seemed so much different? Have you ever asked yourself why? Is there something specifically causing that loss of community? Something almost built into our way of life that destroys that bond?
Have you ever stopped to really think about it?
It is the endless crush of the need for money. It is not because “these kids today just don’t get it”, or “when I was growing up, we worked, not like people today”. It is not the cellphones or online games or alcohol or boredom.
These are merely escapes…
Escapes from the endless and always increasing demands for more money.
Maybe it is time to consider a different way of life.
A return to the things that really matter.
A return to the pursuit of happiness and contentment and love instead of the mad dash for survival through obtaining more and more and more money and the stuff it buys.
Maybe it is time to return to our communities, people and friends and neighbors.
It is time to return to Love.
It is time to return to the Gift.
“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”
— James Allen
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