#I got these ideas mainly from Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass

[tommming]

Gift Economy

Maybe we all feel something so dark and painful deep down, something off and something exhausting about living in this world, which has become so thoroughly pervaded by capitalism and the values of white christian imperialism, because life is a gift meant to be given, and we are not made to exchange one thing for another.

In many indigenous societies, instead of having a transactional economy ("barter" is a myth by the way) there exists what anthropologists call a gift economy, where the main way things get passed around is through gifts and reciprocity.

I think that life itself is a gift we have received, and it's ours to do whatever we want with it, but the best thing to do when you receive a gift is to give again, if you are able. I for one think that the meaning in my life comes from giving; giving myself to my wife, and to my work, giving gifts and sharing love with my friends, giving my heart to music and to the beauty in the world around me. Life is a gift, so I want to give it.