Tag Archives: generosity

Can’t Give it Away

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December 20, 2009

I love the holidays. The neural re-enforcement from childhood is of cinnamon, hot chocolate, giving gifts, pine needles, why wouldn’t my brain go into auto-bliss at the sound of the first Christmas carol? A brain does not care about political correctness, religious sensitivities or even social consequences when faced with a flood of norepenephrine and boosted alpha states as a Pavlovian response to these delicious stimuli.

With this in mind, I snap into Santa’s helper mode. I like to give things away – homemade mandarin marmalade, oranges, cookies, books and cookbooks. For those who don’t know about my career path, I have written two cookbooks and have a personal inventory with which I can do as I choose. So, in the spirit of the season of giving, I dropped a box of my vegetarian cookbooks in the back of my car this chilly Sunday morning, put the dogs in the back seat and headed for the farmer’s market with the intention of gifting passersby with cookbooks. Scott was working on the site and couldn’t join me.

The market was bustling with people buying vegetables, persimmons and citrus for their holiday meals and normal weekly fare. I chose a spot, pulled a book out and began offering the shoppers “Free Cookbooks!” The first thing I noticed is that people are wary of anyone giving something away. A quick glance out of the corner of the eye, “No thanks” and a quick shuffle away. There’s an obvious fear of either having to engage, or becoming obligated to some auxilliary thing, the freebie being the “hook”. But I continued, and a couple of people stopped. They were suspicious, but they stopped. A big smile spread on their face when they realized this was an actual gift, and, no, I didn’t want to carry on a deeper conversation or sell them anything. Huge smiles now.

Within 2 -3 minutes, however, the organizer of the Farmers Markets came by and informed me that I could not give the books away in a public place. “Why?” I asked. “Because it could hurt those who are paying for a vending space and selling their books” he said. “But there are no booksellers here” said I. “It doesn’t matter” said he.

Not one to leave it alone, I asked if I could perhaps give my books away over next to the Jews Against Zionism table on the outskirts of the market. Nice people, I knew they wouldn’t mind having a little company since they catch a lot of flack themselves.  But the Market Boss said, “No, only political action groups are allowed to give free information away in public places.” I see. I could hand out some version of politically divisive, even hateful, political propaganda to vegetable shoppers, but not a good soup recipe. Makes sense.

So I decided to try again at our local Natural Foods Co-Op. It’s a grassroots organization, owned by it’s members, surely they would love the idea of a free vegetarian cookbook give-away during the holidays.

The first encounter was with a customer service rep. “Actually, you would need to have permission from the marketing department and I don’t know if she’s working today.”

“But I’m not marketing anything, I just want to give away some books for people to enjoy.” He kindly said in his ‘I won’t tell on you’ voice, “Well, go outside and do it then.”

I put my box of books on the ground next to me in the parking lot near the front entrance, again informing passerbys that I was giving away free cookbooks. Within a couple of minutes a security guard came up and told me to cease. He said that I would need a couple of permits from the Co-op since this was private property.

I considered pushing it a bit and telling him that these people were all my friends and one can certainly give gifts to friends on private property, right? I see people giving birthday gifts to each other here, at other restaurants and in public parks all the time. Instead, I picked my books up and left, but my heart actually hurt.

Generosity and goodwill constitute the backbone to the holiday season, be it Christmas, Hanukkah or Hajj. Arguably it should be all year round. While I know I set myself up for this in terms of my manic holiday hard-wiring, I find it depressing that we can’t express a little giving among our human brothers and sisters without an attorney at our side.

Epilogue: The next morning

The Co-op manager called this morning and said they would be happy to let me give away my books and I did not need to go through any procedure or red tape. He  said it was wrong that I was turned away, especially since they used to sell that very same book in the store.

Big smiles, I’ll give them away on Wednesday, just in time for Christmas Mania!

When Cash Is No Longer King

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October 22, 2009

While half of those watching the world of finance is waiting for the other shoe to drop and the other half celebrating the mainstream news that the economy is bouncing back, I have been looking at new paradigms in creating an economically sustainable future. Whether it all comes unraveled by mid-November, as some of our insiders have been telling us, or not, we have a frighteningly bloated and decaying beast we’ve been feasting on in the west – a credit based (debt based) economy. And it’s beginning to decompose to the extent that there is barely any flesh left on it’s bones.

Three days ago I heard an NPR business report that mentioned Harley Davidson’s profits were down 83% in the third quarter. In response, the luxury motorcycle manufacturer was quickly developing new markets, including major cities in the Middle East. The reporter interviewed an Arab woman who says she is excited to be on the back of her husband’s bike. It evoked some interesting, though likely inaccurate, visuals in my mind. But soon my logic took over. No more Harleys for middle aged white lawyers and dentists meant that they could no longer secure credit. Oops. If these guys aren’t being given credit, what’s happening to the rest of us? Yes, I know, that’s a rhetorical question.

This set me on a different line of inquiry. I have a very distinct Utopian side to my belief system, in so much as I believe a more Utopian society is possible. These flames were fanned over the last two days as I attended the Praxis Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California.

Among the issues I was intrigued with were Cashless Exchange and Time Banking – both of which I feel we need to seriously consider within our own communities. As I was interviewing Tom Greco, an author on cashless systems, I referred to his book as End of Money: Beginning of Civilization. He laughed and said “I like that, maybe that is what I should have called the book! It’s fair to say that what we have been doing is anything BUT civilized!” In truth, the name of his book was End of Money: Future of Civilization, but the profundity of my mistake was not lost on either of us.

The stark truth is that the one factor that keeps most human beings at the bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a scarcity of money in our lives. This lack keeps us in fear and working simply for our survival. This is not what it means to be human. We are innately creative beings with a need to express beauty, kindness, generosity and love, only we’re too tired to do it most of the time. But what happens if money goes away, at least money as we know it?

The brilliant and brave people lecturing at this conference have put forth that we have a choice in this matter. We simply have to commit some of our time and creativity and we can begin building the foundations of peaceful and abundant communities in which every one of us who is capable can use our talents, skills and passions to contribute to the whole in such a way that we rebuild sustainable communities rich in diversity of self expression and activities. After all, since when have most of us directly supported the work of poets, artists, bards and philosophers? Yet, how much richer would their work make the community if it were equally honored alongside the grocer, doctor and dentist?

The issue of reclaiming our humanity, creativity and civility is of great importance at a time when we are attempting to reach into finer vibrational realms as a species. Because of this, we (CMN) are going to be focusing on alternatives to this credit/debt based nightmare economy that has reduced billions of earth’s people to rats on a treadmill. For the next several months we will be featuring pioneers in the world of sustainable and Local Living Economies. You will find great comfort, inspiration and energy in their experiences, which may well lead each of us to engage in our own community economies in a new and peaceful way.

After all, Ghandi was about non-cooperation. We don’t have to buy cheap imports. We don’t have to eat toxic food. We don’t have to watch, read nor listen to bad media. We don’t have to use credit, nor bank with entites who care nothing about us. We ARE going to have to get off our butts and start making clear choices as to how we want to experience our future.

Wouldn’t you prefer to be doing the things you love and working only a few hours a week, as Mr. Greco suggests is a very real potential scenario, in a balanced and sustainable economy where Cash is no longer king?