The Art of Giving

Photo by Maheima Kapur on Unsplash

What keeps life kicking is the Art of Giving!

Isn’t it the most fascinating hidden principle that sustains all living systems? It is so amazing to see the entire process in which an acorn grows and becomes an oak tree! It appears that the entire complex process is fundamentally grounded on the process of what the living system gives in each moment of its existence and growth! A bud grows to root, stem, and leaves. They give oxygen to the air, and fruits and flowers to the ecosystem. The system outside it gives what they have — sunlight, water, air, etc. It shows up as there is a hidden purpose to give, beyond the limitation of one’s existence that drives this spontaneous growth!

Similar is the spectacle when we see a software engineer learning to code. She develops complex algorithms and data structures to solve a real problem. And then she continues to develop more and more complex systems. And then while doing that, she realizes the limitations of just coding and grows to understand design languages, system engineering models and tools, and then starts building more complex systems using them. In this journey, she learns ontology, semantics, syntax, model-based system engineering, and what not! This entire trajectory of growth and the gradual opening of her mind is propelled by the hidden and natural engine — Giving!

This process of giving appears to have two main characteristics. This is inherent in the nature of this process!

1. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT CYCLE — The process of giving is coupled with space for a problem to be solved or demand for what is given. This demand for the system needs to be met for life to thrive. It might be a business need, the voice of the customer, sociological need, etc. This demand propels continuous improvement and innovation. This mandates a pause, reflection, retrospection, and understanding of what we need to learn further to make our giving even possible. The offering is hence made more relevant to the changing environment. One learning leads to the other. One solution leads to the other; more robust one. There is a bootstrapping that kicks in, and it is an eternal and infinite cycle of continuous improvement. I say it a cycle of improvement, and not a linear progression, because, we get back to the same problems and situations. But each time we handle it in a different way. We give something different, with a different texture of quality, experience, wisdom, and finesse.
2. SPONTANEOUS RECIPROCATION — Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Every giving, kicks off a novel act of counter giving from some other quarter — linearly or non-linearly dependent! And most beautiful is that this process is entirely spontaneous and is hidden in the intelligence of all living forms! It starts with an initial coupled-receiving of what is being given, and then this coupled causal receiving grows to further enhancement to the next level, of a novel — giving — of something that did not exist earlier. And the cycle continues! This bootstrapping kicks in, making further complex systems. If this next level of giving stops, the system dies!

It appears that every living system cannot help but give, to be alive and thrive. The quality of what we give, of course, depends on the quality of what we have become. And this becoming is a result of ongoing learning, experimentation, problem-solving, course-correction, hard work, and insights. As we engage in our day to day life — both personal and professional, such spontaneous growth and giving appear to happen in the self. Obviously, this momentum can go in any direction! Sometimes we give away ugliness, and sometimes we give away beauty. At any point in time what we give, depends on the quality of our own inner self that we choose to develop. That is the identity that we choose and nurture. Our knowledge, competency, experience, and stage of evolution as a professional, family or friend defines and reinforces that identity. And that identity defines the quality of what we give. And each act of giving creates that positive pull to grow. This growth mindset further strengthens more such parallel chain reactions!

This attitude to give something which is beautiful, relevant and a work of art that reflects our own stage of evolution and a sustained effort of learning and development appears to be as the propeller of inspired actions in long term! In the Vedas, this attitude/process is termed as Yajna (यज्ञ)

-Samrat Kar. #TheArtofGiving — 1