Category: Generosity

Everyone has some innate talent, some “thing” they have.

That “thing” is available in nearly endless supply, since it’s part of every person’s essential nature.

Some people are helpful. Some are just full of hospitality. Others are humorous. Still others are organizers.

Everyone has lots of whatever talent they were born with. I like to play with ideas. I’m not sure that’s a talent. This is OK, because other people who value this tell me they enjoy me sending them interesting links and books on topics of interest. So, apparently I do have some kind of valuable talent there.

If you have a nearly endless supply of something, it is easy to offer it to others.

If the receiver does not have that talent or that “thing” you have, and you provide it absolutely free, including being free of any obligation to reciprocate whatsoever, then you have just created something out of nothing.

Repeat: Something out of nothing.

That thing that you have loads of: helpfulness, a talent at being organized, your ability to do research, humor, whatever it is– it costs you next to nothing, because you have an endless supply of it. It’s part of your nature. You cannot stop yourself. It’s not like you have any choice in the matter.

I have a friend, she is totally amazing at Myers Briggs and other personality profiling tools. I gain tremendous value from what she perceives as automatic and natural- and in 100% abundant supply.

I value her talent in this area higher than she does!

Surprise: The thing you have so much of is often valued more highly by others than it is by you yourself. And when someone who lacks your gift receives some of it from you, you create value from nothing.

At scale, as a norm, in a culture, this idea has the potential to create tremendous amounts of value and wealth in various forms.

This is emphemeralization: doing more and more, with less and less, until we are doing everything with nothing. The idea as expressed by Buckminster Fuller has to do with technology, yet it can be applied to social technology, too.

As a culture hack, being generous with your gift is hard to beat.

The Moral of the story:

You have a gift.

You have loads of it.

You can afford to be freely generous with your gift.

 

Related Links:

Ephemeralization (link)

 

Can large acts of generosity be harmful? Yes, they can.

Consider the potlatch, a ceremonial event in the lives of certain Pacific Northwest indigenous tribes. According to the history of potlatch, large acts of generosity were used to signal wealth and high social status in the tribe. Taken to extremes, hosts of potlatch events sometimes ritually destroyed valuable objects as a signal of power and wealth. When generosity is used for social posturing, the resulting sense of obligation can be harmful for giver and receiver alike.

In a previous post, I discussed the radical and potentially revolutionary nature of developing a practice of mindful generosity. It comes with some pitfalls of course.

One way to stay out of trouble as a generous person is very simple: intentionally keep your acts of generosity small. By doing this, you avoid creating discomfort on the part of the receiver,  signaling real consideration for the person who is receiving what amounts to a small gift. Small acts of generosity amount to an invitation, from the giver to the receiver, to be in relationship.

The practice of “gifting small”  sidesteps the difficult feelings of obligation that are often associated with large gifts.

Small acts of generosity are useful for creating a new and far more interesting world than the one current one– the one dominated by contract and economic exchange.

What might be called microgenerosity — the art of engaging in small and frequent acts of interpersonal generosity– is an interesting idea to play with.

Small acts of generosity can make your world a place where interpersonal  relationships– rather than impersonal transactions– are the new normal.

 

Related Links:

The potlatch (link)

“…In the potlatch, the host in effect challenged a guest chieftain to exceed him in his ‘power’ to give away or to destroy goods. If the guest did not return 100 percent on the gifts received and destroy even more wealth in a bigger and better bonfire, he and his people lost face and so his ‘power’ was diminished.”

Generosity Gone Bad (link)

“…Knowing the signs of the wrong kind of generosity can help you spot them, in others or even in yourself, in advance.”

Previous Post: Generosity, Thrivability and Self-Organization (link)