“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
– Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
Love this short piece it fits well with the aristotelian idea that you should give because a Giver is the type of person you want to embody.
When people are blind to this mode of giving, it also makes them worse at receiving it - if giving is always loss or sacrifice, then they don't want to accept the gift and cause that loss to the giver. They aren't able to conceive that giving the gift is its own reward, and thus refusing the gift is denying the reward to the giver.
Suggests that being good at receiving is just as important to finding connection as being good at giving.
(Inspired by my other comment, but felt like this deserved its own thread)
Henrik, I’m going to ignore your main point about giving, basically because I agree with it and accept it, but I want to ask you about your word choice. You use the work “fucking” twice … and in both instances I found it jarring, out of tune. I’m certain that you’ve done it quite purposefully and I wonder if you’d care to comment about that here? (And you’ll know that I’m not merely averse to swearing, in fact I do it all the damn time.)
I think that we often underestimate how much causality goes two ways, how much opposites are entangled. Just like how in every good there is a seed of bad and vice versa, just like how risk is the cotton that the fabric of reward is made of, action (especially generosity) precedes emotion as much as emotion causes action.
I definitely practice this a lot, and it does feel really good to give from a place of being able to provide, wanting to share my wealth.
But what I've found more often than not is that people aren't willing to receive what I want to offer. Whether because they're just not interested, or because they don't feel worthy of receiving it.
When this happens I feel less connected than before. It's great being able to generate your own wealth, but there's nothing more lonely than someone who has a pile of wealth with no one to share it with.
That is interesting! When you say "they are not interested"--that sounds a bit like you are not paying close enough attention and is giving for yourself, not for them, if you see what I mean. I was talking to a car mechanic a few weeks ago and I felt like I was being generous, asking him all sorts of interesting and original questions, about his emotions when he works on cars etc--and that was absolutely not his thing; he felt these questions were weird and annoying. So the generous thing was to stop, and--well, in this case, I couldn't figure out what to do about the situation, but I feel respect for what he felt and I often find it invigorating to try to figure out why they way I see the world does not match reality, as in this case. Am I off when I reflect back to you like this? If so, how? The other part: people who don't feel worthy. Again, if this is a fact about them, then that is something to take into account if you want to be generous with them. I had for example a friend who died last year and there was talk about giving her a celebration before she passed, and her husband, wisely, said, no way, she won't like that. So we didn't. It would have been an indulgence on our side, a way to care for ourselves and not her. So we had to let go off what felt like generosity to us, and figure out what she needed (which turned out to be that she wanted to feel needed, she wanted to plan the funeral and put her stuff in order and make sure the people she left behind would have a good life--this was what she needed, so we let her and helped her do that instead).
But yeah: it is hard, and it is a two way thing, and sometimes it just doesn't work, or you feel like you would violate yourself by being generous in the way that others need.
I think you are right Henrik in what you say, but it is easy to take rejection personally. A practice I have begun is exploration of the opposite, that could probably be useful here. If I am trying to give and a person rejects me, I might feel like that person is rude or unappreciative. Then I turn it to myself and ask “how am I being rude or unappreciative”? This makes the situation very interesting because it often makes me realise things about myself and my perceptiveness (something you wrote about in a prior piece), just like you did with the mechanic. This is no panacea to the feelings experienced by Harry, but becoming more attuned to what one is receiving isn’t terms of signals, helps one become better at giving. In a podcast I listed to a mother (being interviewed) had developed a practice with her family to ask (and I am paraphrasing) “do you want me to listen or come with suggestions”? When people are not receiving what you offer, it may be because they don’t want or don’t have the capacity right now to receive what you have to offer. A possible cause of Harry’s giving being rejected might simply be that the gifts were not well suited to the receivers needs at that point.
There's something that clicks here for me, the necessity of being as present as possible when giving. Ties in to your idea of listening to the context.
Yeah, another way to describe giving-as-potency is giving as a way to feel useful, to feel needed. It is extremely affirming when it works but when it doesn't, it makes you feel powerless, unneeded. Especially in that second example it sounded like both parties wanted to give to feel useful. In this case what was actually necessary was for one party to choose to receive, to recognize that accepting the gift is actually the most generous action. https://x.com/array_hog/status/1616526055539625985
One of my favorite Reddit writers once wrote something I'm slightly paraphrasing, but the quote was something like 'The most powerful king is the most generous'. It was an alien species that show generosity as a sign of power - you could afford to be generous, you must be powerful.
That has sat with me for years since, and has warped (in a good way) how I think about power. Power is being able to give and the more you contribute the stronger you show you are.
yeah, fairly common practice in many cultures - like those wild parties among indians on the us west coasts where they would give away everything and throw the rest into the ocean to show how powerful and resilient their clan was
Not exactly - I don't think virtouos implies anything about how it feels? So all kinds of giving could be or not be virtous depending on the principles involved, no matter the feeling inside? Though I suspect there is a correlation between the hierarchy Fromm talks about and the likelihood of virtue.
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
– Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926)
Love this short piece it fits well with the aristotelian idea that you should give because a Giver is the type of person you want to embody.
When people are blind to this mode of giving, it also makes them worse at receiving it - if giving is always loss or sacrifice, then they don't want to accept the gift and cause that loss to the giver. They aren't able to conceive that giving the gift is its own reward, and thus refusing the gift is denying the reward to the giver.
Suggests that being good at receiving is just as important to finding connection as being good at giving.
(Inspired by my other comment, but felt like this deserved its own thread)
"Pay attention to things as if they are too small to fit in your head—and feel love seep out of you."
This resonates with me, but only if I read it as "as if they are too big to fit". Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean.
thanks, my mistake
"(...) The most prodigious love was granted him,
the love that has no hope of being loved."
From the poem: "Baruch Spinoza" by Borges 🧡
"El más pródigo amor le fue otorgado,
el amor que no espera ser amado."
(It sounds better in spanish) 😌
This is almost the opposite of saying 'power corrupts'
Henrik, I’m going to ignore your main point about giving, basically because I agree with it and accept it, but I want to ask you about your word choice. You use the work “fucking” twice … and in both instances I found it jarring, out of tune. I’m certain that you’ve done it quite purposefully and I wonder if you’d care to comment about that here? (And you’ll know that I’m not merely averse to swearing, in fact I do it all the damn time.)
Haha yeah probably, I just tried writing it the way I would say it
Thank you for this lovely piece, and for giving of yourself. Time to dig out my copy of The Art of Loving.
Very worthwhile and beautiful article, thank you!
I think that we often underestimate how much causality goes two ways, how much opposites are entangled. Just like how in every good there is a seed of bad and vice versa, just like how risk is the cotton that the fabric of reward is made of, action (especially generosity) precedes emotion as much as emotion causes action.
if the answer is as fluffy and simple as that, then that's that. Love
I definitely practice this a lot, and it does feel really good to give from a place of being able to provide, wanting to share my wealth.
But what I've found more often than not is that people aren't willing to receive what I want to offer. Whether because they're just not interested, or because they don't feel worthy of receiving it.
When this happens I feel less connected than before. It's great being able to generate your own wealth, but there's nothing more lonely than someone who has a pile of wealth with no one to share it with.
That is interesting! When you say "they are not interested"--that sounds a bit like you are not paying close enough attention and is giving for yourself, not for them, if you see what I mean. I was talking to a car mechanic a few weeks ago and I felt like I was being generous, asking him all sorts of interesting and original questions, about his emotions when he works on cars etc--and that was absolutely not his thing; he felt these questions were weird and annoying. So the generous thing was to stop, and--well, in this case, I couldn't figure out what to do about the situation, but I feel respect for what he felt and I often find it invigorating to try to figure out why they way I see the world does not match reality, as in this case. Am I off when I reflect back to you like this? If so, how? The other part: people who don't feel worthy. Again, if this is a fact about them, then that is something to take into account if you want to be generous with them. I had for example a friend who died last year and there was talk about giving her a celebration before she passed, and her husband, wisely, said, no way, she won't like that. So we didn't. It would have been an indulgence on our side, a way to care for ourselves and not her. So we had to let go off what felt like generosity to us, and figure out what she needed (which turned out to be that she wanted to feel needed, she wanted to plan the funeral and put her stuff in order and make sure the people she left behind would have a good life--this was what she needed, so we let her and helped her do that instead).
But yeah: it is hard, and it is a two way thing, and sometimes it just doesn't work, or you feel like you would violate yourself by being generous in the way that others need.
I think you are right Henrik in what you say, but it is easy to take rejection personally. A practice I have begun is exploration of the opposite, that could probably be useful here. If I am trying to give and a person rejects me, I might feel like that person is rude or unappreciative. Then I turn it to myself and ask “how am I being rude or unappreciative”? This makes the situation very interesting because it often makes me realise things about myself and my perceptiveness (something you wrote about in a prior piece), just like you did with the mechanic. This is no panacea to the feelings experienced by Harry, but becoming more attuned to what one is receiving isn’t terms of signals, helps one become better at giving. In a podcast I listed to a mother (being interviewed) had developed a practice with her family to ask (and I am paraphrasing) “do you want me to listen or come with suggestions”? When people are not receiving what you offer, it may be because they don’t want or don’t have the capacity right now to receive what you have to offer. A possible cause of Harry’s giving being rejected might simply be that the gifts were not well suited to the receivers needs at that point.
There's something that clicks here for me, the necessity of being as present as possible when giving. Ties in to your idea of listening to the context.
Yeah, another way to describe giving-as-potency is giving as a way to feel useful, to feel needed. It is extremely affirming when it works but when it doesn't, it makes you feel powerless, unneeded. Especially in that second example it sounded like both parties wanted to give to feel useful. In this case what was actually necessary was for one party to choose to receive, to recognize that accepting the gift is actually the most generous action. https://x.com/array_hog/status/1616526055539625985
One of my favorite Reddit writers once wrote something I'm slightly paraphrasing, but the quote was something like 'The most powerful king is the most generous'. It was an alien species that show generosity as a sign of power - you could afford to be generous, you must be powerful.
That has sat with me for years since, and has warped (in a good way) how I think about power. Power is being able to give and the more you contribute the stronger you show you are.
yeah, fairly common practice in many cultures - like those wild parties among indians on the us west coasts where they would give away everything and throw the rest into the ocean to show how powerful and resilient their clan was
Would you say that ‘giving from a deep and spontaneous place inside of you’ is *virtuous* giving?
Not exactly - I don't think virtouos implies anything about how it feels? So all kinds of giving could be or not be virtous depending on the principles involved, no matter the feeling inside? Though I suspect there is a correlation between the hierarchy Fromm talks about and the likelihood of virtue.