What a Gift Gives

I only recently learned that the idea that we started using money after barter systems fell apart was empirically unsupported, that it’s an idea that’s probably incorrect yet has had a really good publicity team. And I only learned this after Nissa brought a stack of books to our office early in the summer: “I got a bunch of economics books for real cheap at the place in Montpelier, maybe you want to look through them for the Wellbeing Economy class?” she asked. “Take whatever looks cool.” 

I picked up David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. And what I learned was that barter was more of an anomaly, even in earlier human societies. I had learned that barter fell apart because people only need so much pottery, and when the pottery peddlers don’t have anyone left to trade with but still need to obtain food, they’re out of luck and the system falls apart. But people didn’t interact in such exacting ways with the other humans; it was much more likely that humans simply gave each other the things they needed to survive without expecting immediate compensation, recognizing that their cooperation and mutual thriving was what allowed them to form a society in the first place. It was the glue that held them together. You simply wouldn’t survive if you didn’t help each other out. If someone helped you repair the fence, they knew that eventually, you’d help watch their kids. It would all come out in the wash. Barter was reserved for people passing through, someone who wasn’t fully a part of the community. 

I scanned a couple pages and gave the books back to Nissa. In exchange, I offered to send early drafts of the writing I had done for the wellbeing economy class. And I started rethinking what it meant to be generous, to give freely, to be indebted to someone else. A gift economy, then, is simply a way of challenging the idea that we need to pay for everything we need to survive. We don’t need a ton of money when we have each other.

A gift is a recognition of plenty, of having enough to share. Or maybe it’s a recognition of need. I guess it depends, and I guess maybe it’s both. It’s the constant matching and mismatching, the commitment to place and time that facilitates their coming together. 

So it seems particularly special to open up space for Nissa - one of the people who, for me, illustrates best what a gift economy could look and feel like - and Lauren, a friend of Nissa’s and a regular at our EcoGatherings, whose presence feels like an ever-expanding gift - to share stories about the transformative potential of gifts and gift economies.

Nissa

Although I was a voracious reader as a child, my years in high school, college, and graduate school sapped me of my energy and time to do any meaningful extracurricular reading outside of my assigned texts. This did not stop me from accruing a sizable mental list and precarious bedside stack of aspirational volumes. I volunteered at a local used bookstore throughout the pandemic as a way to get out of the house, and the bargain books obviously began piling up for “one day.”

One day arrived, and a dear friend, with whom I wasn’t keeping up with as often as I would have liked, texted me out of the blue “What is your address? I am sending you something.”

A week or so later I opened the thick envelope to discover a buttery yellow paperback with simple red letters that read “ISHMAEL” on the cover. 

Of course, if someone so dear to me that I spoke to so infrequently thought this book was important enough to send to me from across the country, I was not going to simply toss it on the pile or add it to the bottom of the queue. I began reading it immediately. What about it had made him think of me? Why was it so urgent? 

Of course, if you have read Ishmael, you’ll know that this book changed the course of my life. I am not sure I would be here doing what I am doing without it. Nothing about it is not obvious, but it confirms your suspicions that things aren’t quite right, it frames it in helpful analogies and allegories. It tells you “it’s OK, to not feel OK with this. It’s not OK.” It was the first time that was acknowledged for me.

What honor I felt when I finished it. I felt so seen by my friend. He knew I would benefit from it. That I would get it. What renewed appreciation for our kindred spirits I felt. What had he seen in me to know I needed this?  It came to me at exactly the right time, and it was imbued with the love and care and connection I shared with my dear friend. Since he had shared it with me, I never felt alone in my realization that things were inherently, perhaps even designed, to not be OK. How could I pass this feeling on to the next person whose life might be changed? Who could be given permission to not feel OK, and begin the journey down the path to understanding why, and ways out?

If this book had been suggested in an article titled “Top 100 Books You Should Read in Your Lifetime” (as I believe it is), or if someone had offhandedly recommended it, or if I had happened upon it during one of my shifts at the bookstore, perhaps I would never have gotten around to it. I might not have had the perspective I needed to rise to the challenges and opportunities that I encountered. 

It might have been destroyed in the flood that claimed the other books in my pile that I had lugged across the country. In fact, it was not destroyed. It was one of the few that was spared because I had loaned it to another friend. 

—

Lauren

When my brain is full, I write everything down, usually in the form of todo lists. And when I start projects for myself, those projects wind up at the very bottom of my todo list time after time after time. The other tasks have stars next to them, denoting their urgency and the people who depend on them getting marked off my list. 

The things I want to do have no stars denoting their urgency. I’ll get around to them someday until I don’t and it’s too late: planting season is over, or the S.C.O.B.Y. dies before I ever made my first batch of kombucha. And I’ve found this even happens when I feel like I’ve made an investment in a project: I bought a bunch of great yarn and knitting materials to make a (very long?) scarf. It wasn’t cheap. Those supplies have sat untouched for well over a year. Maybe even two now.

Recently, though, I stumbled across the profound impact a gift can have on my priorities. Nicole Civita gifted one of EcoGather’s classes to me: Surviving the Future: A Path Through Tumultuous Times with Shaun Chamberlin. 

I think one of the secret ingredients of an impactful gift is trust. If I had spent my own money to sign up for the course, I fear the course may have wound up like so many of my other projects–at the bottom of my todo list. 

But knowing Nicole thinks I would get so much out of this class that she would entrust me with the content brings a whole new perspective: I want to make sure I soak up as much nourishment from the course as I can – I can’t waste anything. 

It’s been several weeks since I received this precious gift, and I am feeling my todo list grow long, especially as I feel the oncoming frenzy of the winter holidays. 

However, the class is an anchor for me. I feel I’m finally allowed to place a star next to completing a project for myself. It’s how I honor the gift and the trust that it came wrapped in. 

–

Mackenzie, again.

In the same spirit, if you’ve made it this far, we’d like to offer you a gift, too. With the release of so many new EcoGather classes, we wanted to offer a little discount code that you can apply at checkout for a class of your choosing. Find the updated course catalog here, and enter the code “EGFRIEND” for a freebie. All we ask is that you share the gift with a friend, which you can do by sharing the course list and the code “EGFRIEND1.” We hope we can continue sharing the knowledge and care that transform us, that bring us together, and sustain us - it’s what humans do.