On Giving and Gratitude

The season of giving thanks and giving gifts is upon us. We are reminded every time we turn on a television or radio or walk into any store of the approach of the one holiday that creates more mass hysteria, anxiety and depression than all others: Christmas. For many years, I worked in retail establishments during this time. For my own health and sanity, I needed to retreat from these hubs of consumption. I had to examine what this season means to me and how I might best express it. In coming to terms with my heart and the world around me, I have realized the following:

1. I do not need a lot of stuff.
2. While I am grateful for the stuff I have, excess stuff does not need to reside with me. I can give it away.
3. Stuff that I give to other people is given with love and no expectation of reciprocation.
4. My money is as powerful (and maybe more powerful) as my vote. I will vote with my money on a daily basis. I will choose how and when to spend my money.

Let's look at the word consumption for a moment. In biology, it refers to the process of ingesting something for energy gain. Consumption was also a term used to describe pulmonary tuberculosis, a disease that causes the body to gradually waste away as it loses a drastic amount of weight. In this way, the disease appeared to consume the body. When I use the word "consumption," I am referring to the process of purchasing everything I need to live: food, a place to live, clothing, fuel for my car, energy for my home, a phone service, medical services. A certain amount of consumption is necessary for our existence here on the planet. But an excess of consumption is like a disease, causing great waste. 

I like to look at my level of consumption as an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, there is a balance between consumption and output - that which is produced by an individual that benefits the greater ecosystem. I examine the amount of energy it takes to produce the money that I need to purchase things necessary for survival. I examine all that is needed to provide me with this energy. In this way, I have become selective about the amount of money I spend and how I spend it.

I purchase very little new stuff. I go to clothing swaps or buy things from secondhand stores. I acquire things from yard sales and estate sales. I've stopped buying books and started using the library. I make gifts or purchase fantastic items from shops like Reconsidered Goods in Greensboro - which bases its business model on recycling goods of all kinds - or Earthbound Arts in Winston-Salem - where everything is handmade with great love and care. These sorts of energy exchanges work for me. I know that I am supporting an economy based on recycling and a do-it-yourself mindset.

Think about all the things you buy. Think about how often you buy them. Think about altering that pattern. Consider going 24 hours without buying anything. This was the idea behind the launch of Buy Nothing Day, a day of alternative activities held on Black Friday aimed at getting people to look at mass consumption.

Several years ago, I was invited to help organize a Really Really Free Market on Buy Nothing Day. For me, this presented an alternative to participating in the annual consumer mayhem. But beyond that, a profoundly different economic model was demonstrated: a gifting economy. In a gifting economy, goods are given without any expectation of a return. At a Really Really Free Market, for example, individuals drop off goods that are no longer needed. Others shop through these goods and take what is needed for free. It isn't necessary to bring items in order to shop at the Really Really Free Market. There are no expectations of equitable exchange. Items are gifted to the market for anyone who needs them.

The Really Really Free Market was originally established as a form of protest in conjunction with the G8 Summit. But it endures as a means of sharing wealth and acquiring goods outside of our consumer economy.

The Really Really Free Market creates much gratitude. Gratitude is expressed by those who take items. And there is gratitude in the hearts of the givers. Because when we provide goods and services for others, we are looking after their well-being and hence, the well-being of the larger ecosystem that is our local community as well as the planet. It really is a wonder to behold the joyous display of gratitude among all who participate. This is why every year I make certain that there will be a Really Really Free Market on Buy Nothing Day.

This year the Really Really Free Market will be held on November 24 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. in the parking lot of The People's Market at the corner of Grove Street and Glenwood Avenue in Greensboro, NC. Join us for the love and gratitude!

My Plea, My Yawp

The time of making is upon us all.  There is no more reason to tear things down, to divide each other and pit ourselves against our brothers and sisters.  We all want the same things: to be healthy, to be happy, to have a job that pays us enough money to buy housing, transportation, food, healthcare, clothing, heat and air conditioning.  At the very least, most of us want these things. We want to take care of our families.  Some of us want to help our neighbors in need.  But fundamentally, we want to survive and live a decent life filled with opportunities.

Beyond that, every human being has blood that runs through their veins.  We all piss and poop.  We eat and sleep.  At the end of our lives, our bodies die and over time are reduced to a pile of dust.  No one escapes this fate.  This is our reality.  We are here temporarily.

What then will we choose to do with our few years on this planet?  Will we deny our brothers and sisters the same wishes that we have for ourselves?  Will we force an image upon our brothers and sisters that makes them seem somehow different from ourselves?  We might choose to focus on our common humanity and all our similarities instead.  We might hold compassion in our hearts rather than contempt for "others."

If we are to focus on the commonalities between us, then we must fix that focus on the reprehensible characters that we revile. Hillary Clinton.  Donald Trump.  Muslims.  Native Americans.  Women. Wall Street executives.  The poor.  It becomes challenging.

Yet I know in my heart of hearts that we are capable of doing this.  We can be unified in our common humanity.  We can rejoice in the creative spirit that resides in each of us.  We must look beyond the illusion that some would try and create: the illusion that there exists a more deserving group of people, a more privileged group.  We are all privileged.  It is a privilege to be alive in this moment.  And the next.  And the next.  Every breath we take is a miracle.  Because at any second, something beyond our control could take that ability away from us.  And we would soon be a pile of dust.

So let us celebrate this moment of breathing. This next moment of eating.  This next moment of pooping.  Let us celebrate this moment of hugging, of crying, of leaping.  We are all the same.

Why I Celebrate Buy Nothing Day

Why have I joined others in co-opting Black Friday and and turning it into a Buy Nothing Day?  Why do I celebrate Buy Nothing Day as a holiday in and of itself?

It started with having very little money: feeling sad that people spent their hard earned cash buying presents for me yet I couldn't reciprocate.  I started making presents.  Little linoleum block prints, collections of writings, self-composed music cd's, whatever idea presented itself.  Over time, this became my holiday experience.  Giving something of myself rather than a mass produced item made in China.  A one-of-a-kind statement of love.

It started when I worked at a bookstore in a mall, experiencing the mania that possesses shoppers beginning on Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving - and lasting the entire month of December. The frenzy, the anxiety, the anger, the exhaustion, the drive to push onward despite all obstacles to find the just the right gift for Aunt Bertha.

It started when Thanksgiving became overshadowed by sales events strategically designed to encourage more spending, more consumption.  Thanksgiving day used to be spent with family and loved ones. There was a certain comfort, a greater degree of relaxation present due to the realization that no place of commerce was open.  There was nowhere to go, nothing to buy. If it hadn't been purchased prior to Thanksgiving, we did without.  I find it ironic that today, on a day in which we pause to experience gratitude for all we have been given, places of commerce are open to enable us to go out and buy more stuff.

It started when I began to realize the great divide between those with gainful employment and those without.  When I became aware of the plight of the homeless, the unemployed and the under employed. When I became aware of the inequity in resource distribution in America.  When I became aware of the large degree of comfort experienced by some compared to the hunger, sickness and the exposure to the elements experienced by others.

It began when I started to ponder the waste of mass consumption.  The piles of gift wrap and packaging piled up on the floor Christmas morning, for example.  The remnants of gift opening to be stuffed into trash bags and hauled off to the landfill.  This is part of the traditional white American experience.  Deplete our resources and trash the earth for the sake of giving small acknowledgements of a person's value in one's life.

It began when I grew weary of the frenetic pace of this season.  When I began to reject the rote adherence to tradition.  When I began to redefine the meaning of this time of year for myself.

Buy Nothing Day is, for me, a celebration of gratitude and giving.  On this day, I am enveloped in calm and quiet.  I am able to reflect on the abundance created by simply being grateful for all I have. It is a simple yet revolutionary act: the act of gratitude.

I recognize the importance of commerce.  I realize that as a small business, an important means of staying afloat is having people spend money at one's establishment.  Yes, we very much should invest in our community.  By that, I mean we should spend our hard earned money at independently owned and operated businesses as much as possible. Additionally, we really should try to avoid buying things that have been manufactured overseas.  And we can support a healthier environment and our local economy by purchasing from second hand stores.

We can participate in the act of buying and selling, certainly. In fact, to a degree, we must.  I challenge you, however, to consider extending your moment of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day to the day after.  Maintain the stillness and the calm with intention.  Refrain from contributing to the mass hysteria of competing for the greatest deals of the year.  Allow others to consume those deals without your participation.  Simply allow something new to manifest in your life: Meaning.

LOVE!!!!

Thank-you For Your Time

The other day a customer thanked me for my time.  I had prepared a juice for him.  And upon handing it to him, he said, "Thank-you for your time."  I am unable to recall an incident in which this has been said to me.  Surely there has been one.  But in that particular moment, I was touched by this simple statement and the magnitude of its meaning.

Time is a precious commodity.  It seems we never have enough of it.  "Time is money." That's because we spend time exerting our energy and converting that to cash.  Time plus energy equals money.  The dictates of our economy impose a monetary value on our time.  Some people are paid more money than others for their time and energy.  But in my mind, time and energy are relative to the task at hand.

A farmer plowing his field may toil harder physically than a lawyer, but the lawyer is rewarded more money than a farmer.  And a farmer feeds us.  A teacher works long and hard to care for our children, to educate the future leaders of our society.  Yet she is paid less than a Hollywood movie star whose job it is to entertain us.

When a person says, "Thank-you for your time," they seem to have an innate understanding of the time/labor ratio.  They recognize that you have just spent a bit of your precious resources, your energy and time, into serving them.  You gave them a piece of your life.  I think thanking someone for their time is about the best reward anyone can be given for their hard work.  Especially someone who is underpaid.

I spent two days at my friend's house recording a song.  He is such an amazingly generous being.  He is so supportive, so creative and so skilled that it is seriously an honor to spend time with him.  I am greatly humbled by his gift of time.  There is nothing greater than that.  Nothing.

I think I would like my epitaph to read "Thank-you For Your Time."  It would have the duel meaning of  "Thank-you, Mother Earth, for the time you have given me to live, grow and explore Life," and "Thank-you, dear friends, for giving me your time, your love, your support, across the years."

At this point, I will end my missive by saying: Thank-you for your time spent reading this.  If I touch a handful of people with my writing, I am honored.