Gift is no more than a name we've given to represent this anomaly of the human spirit: the inclination to give. In my opinion, the desire to give is just as inherent as the desire to take, though appears in varying degrees. Nevertheless, humans in all their opposable thumbed intelligence have made a considerable effort to try and explain their ideas of what a gift should and should not be, in an attempt to regulate the emotion behind the giving.
Lost? Not surprising.
Let me clear up. When we define gifts, we are defining the ideal way they should be given. (ie: selflessly, without expectation of return), because we WANT them to be given for the purest of reasons. We want people to be capable of giving whole heartedly and the like, because it means we as humans may not be so bad after all.
So where does Emerson fit into all this? He believes, as do I, that we are capable of giving selflessly, without expectation, and out of the purest joy of our hearts. It's possible. But it's not easy. Our nature is at a war as we try to balance the desire to give and take.
How many times do we give gifts because we can't wait to see how the people react positively? This is fantastic because it means we want to see them happy. But- this also means we expect to gain some kind of peer validation, or 'i-owe-you' status by giving them a gift they love. They're going to feel, no matter how slight, a need to 'repay,' and this according to Emerson is a sign something is wrong.
Emerson warns us, (and flat out rebukes us) for giving in this manner. Much of "Gifts" is really a 'how-not-to-give' list in a greater attempt to correct our personal motives for giving. He's not just correcting our actions, but changing our hearts and minds. When he says "the expectation of gratitude is mean" what he's trying to say is STOP BEING SO SELFISH as to expect something in return! If Emerson were to make a list of how to give gifts, it would look like this: 1. its is easiest(but not best) to give someone something they need
2. True gift is to Give of yourself
3. Don't attempt to buy meaning; worth is not proportional to cost
4. Hold no part of yourself back when you give
5. you're in a loose-loose situation when receiving gifts
6. Do not expect gratitude
7. "Do not flatter your benefactors"
8. Doing them services is not giving of yourself
9. "Love them , and they feel you"
Ultimately, Emerson says that giving should be an expression of love. For this reason, when one gives, it should be of themselves, without expectation. We as humans believe gifts should be given this way, not just because we WANT humans to be capable of these things, but because we KNOW they're capable. "Actions reveal priorities" as Ghandi said, and as long as we follow Emerson's guidelines for true giving, our motives will be just as pure.
1 comment:
I do agree with your point that a giver should not expect anything in return. We should not always expect a positive response from the receiver, as that would be expecting a gift from the receiver. Emerson’s idea of “easy” gifts, in some ways, coincides with this belief. When giving a gift that will satisfy the recipient’s desires, one is almost certainly expecting to receive a positive response, which contradicts Emerson’s definition of a gift. In fact, Emerson’s belief that the giver should not expect a response applies to more than just gifts. One should never expect a favor in any profession or interaction with other people after giving a favor.
Also, if a giver does not give a part of his or her self, it is not really a gift because it did not truly cost anything. This thought was almost certainly not conceived by Emerson. In fact, Emerson might have been commenting on Jesus’s opinion on wealth. At numerous points in Matthew and Mark, Jesus asserts that it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). Jesus asserts this due to the fact that one must make a sacrifice (a significant amount of income) in order to give to the poor. A small gift that only is a small fraction of one’s resources does not change the person who gave and, in some ways, is expecting a positive response from the recipient. I think that there are few people who can say that they have obeyed this belief of Jesus and Emerson.
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