Shared Giving

     I truly feel that conditioning makes us try to be players in the game of life. I remember reading a book by science fiction writer A.E. Van Vogt called Players of Null A, which precisely used the metaphor of life as a game that people use to influence things and people. We are all encouraged to play a part, to wrack the most points and so on. We might even fear not having anything to offer--and this is truly the deepest fear we might have. What happens when I have less to give than the others? And the problem as I see it here is that one is separating themselves from others and trying to quantify our gifts so that we feel secure that we are able to provide for ourselves and others. 

    Courage is needed to settle that desire to try to enhance the self as a giver. If someone offers a gift that everyone enjoys, I want to offer a bigger gift. Why is that? It's because the gift draws attention to my ability to give and contribute to social well-being. Then someone else wants to outdo that gift, and so on. Then we accumulate points and start to see ourselves as givers. There is nothing terribly wrong with this, other than that it deprives others the opportunity to be givers themselves! Sooner or later, we become attached to our status as a giver and are not able to receive let alone depend on the moment or identify with the greater unfolding moments of which we are a part. I am too narrowly focused on my own contribution to see how much of our experiences are already deeply shared. 

    An example would be a conversation: nobody can really converse with a robot. A true conversation has to be a dance between talker and listener and vice versa. Here, there is no point saying one is doing more than the other. When people are in sync, it feels that they are able to support the other even when they are feeling tired and cannot contribute that moment.  Here, it ceases to be a competition: people feel that they are mutually together on something. I think this is also the essence of encountering people. People are infinite mysteries, and none of us can ever fully know another person's ins and outs even if we lived with them for eternity. The same is true of all sentient beings, in all their infinite travels and journeys; we simply cannot fathom who we've interacted with in previous lifetimes and what paths crossed. To accept the mystery of being is to let go of the tendency to try to quantify the self or value or experiences in general.