Un-Paywalling and the Gift Economy

Limiting limitations: I'm removing the paywall on almost everything.

Hi friend,

I hope you are doing well! I made it back from Iceland last night.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the solstice ritual I did for you (and me, given that I’m also a subscriber):

Alright, on to today’s post, which is still about creating liberation through limitation.

Well, sometimes, you gotta limit limitations. That’s why I’m removing the paywall on my private posts (except for two workshops, as these include recordings of other people).

You now have access to additional meditations, videos, and transmissions. You can explore all my newly unpaywalled creations here.

I am offering these to you as a gift, in the hopes that you will find something of value in them.

You can still support this project by becoming a paid subscriber. My heartfelt thanks go to everyone who is or has been a paid subscriber to my publication! Your support is very encouraging and motivating for me. ❤️

Why am I doing this?

The short answer is that it feels better to me. It feels more aligned. More generous.

After all, if I’m creating something, don’t I want as many people as possible to benefit from it?

To be clear, this is just what is aligned for me at this moment and something I want to try out. It is by no means a statement on what anyone else should do, or a moral judgment on anyone else’s choices. I’m doing this because it feels good. If it didn’t feel good, I wouldn’t do it. So, my motivation is actually quite selfish. :)

The longer answer is that I recently wrote a short post that gathered a lot of support:

In this post, I wrote:

“… it feels SO GOOD to move away from the typical mindset of paying money to get something (“giving to get”).

We have been so brainwashed by capitalism into a “money for product” mentality that it often takes us a while to get into the true spirit of Substack—which is one of generosity (“giving to give”).

I’m still in that process of transformation, both as a reader and writer.

But I’m really glad to be along for the ride here.”

It sparked a lot of interesting conversations. If you are interested, you can read them here.

It also got me thinking about what author and philosopher

Charles Eisenstein

calls “The Gift Economy.”

The gift economy

I actually experienced the gift economy in action today: our car “Brigid” was making weird noises, so we took it to a car place to get it checked out. It was apparently a small thing to fix, so they didn’t charge us for it.

This was an all-around beautiful thing: we felt grateful and uplifted by their generosity. We also felt a ton of goodwill towards them, and plan to go to them in the future. And, we wanted to gift them a generous tip in return.

This is a great example of the power of a good gift: it feels great to receive, it creates a bond, builds goodwill towards the giver of the gift, and inspires generosity in return.

The gift economy is an absolutely beautiful concept, and Charles writes about it in a way that is nuanced and inspirational:

From Sacred Economics: Money, the Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

“monetary transactions don’t create a bond, but gift transactions do. And that’s one reason why gifts are sacred … Gifts create circles. … Because if you have more than you need, you share it with somebody, you give it to somebody who needs it. … When that person has more than they need, they’ll pass it on to somebody else, and eventually it comes back to you. And you see that happening, so you understand that somebody else’s good fortune is your good fortune as well. And you’re not in competition. And it’s not because you’re self-sacrificing. It’s simply the way things work.”

You can find the full essay here (his website is down at the time of writing this).

From Living in the Gift

In this essay, Charles contrasts two stories—the story of separation and the story of interbeing:

“The world’s dominant culture, the one called modern, has a story of the world too. … It is the story that holds us as separate individuals and holds humanity separate from nature.

In the Story of Separation, giving does not come naturally. In fact, that story says our default nature is selfishness, down to the genetic level. If I’m separate from you, then more for me is less for you.

… In the story of Interbeing, life is a gift. The world and everything in it is a gift. We did not earn our lives. We did not earn the sun …

When we apprehend these basic truths, gratitude comes naturally. Gratitude is the knowledge of having received and the consequent desire to give in turn. It is primal. All beings including human beings have an unquenchable desire to pour forth their gifts.”

You can read the full essay here (his website is down at the time of writing this).

Photo by Antony BEC on Unsplash. This picture beautifully exemplifies how the world and everything in it is a gift.

The value of giving gifts

To summarize some of Charles Eisenstein’s thoughts on gifts, they:

• create bonds,

• create circles,

• foster gratitude,

• help build community,

• are based on a more beautiful story than the Story of Separation, and

• ultimately improve everyone’s lives.

Of course, there is a lot of complexity to all of this. While there is so much beauty to a gift economy, it’s not all just roses. For instance, here are some things Charles mentioned elsewhere:

• when someone gives a gift, it improves the status of the gift giver. It also generally comes with some expectation (which is why we might not want to receive certain gifts from certain people),

• it can be hard to make the distinction between “free” and “gift” clear to people (for instance, when offering a valuable and in-depth course that one would normally charge for as a gift), and

• a gift economy doesn’t function anonymously—public gifts create bonds between people, while anonymous gifts don’t.

If you want to dive more deeply into this, check out Charles Eisenstein’s book Sacred Economics.

Do you have experience with the gift economy, either as a giver or as a receiver? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience!

Warmly,
Louise

P.S.: Here’s the link again to my gifts.