Friday, November 25, 2011

An Introduction to the Art of Gift Giving

Perhaps you've heard the story of the Gift of the Magi. Two lovers who were very poor wanted to get each other Christmas gifts, even though they had both agreed that they couldn't afford to get gifts that year. The man spotted one day a jewel encrusted comb of great beauty. So he pawned his prized possession, his grandfather's pocket watch, so that he could buy his wife this gift. The wife one day found a gold watch chain that would look perfectly on her husbands watch. Having no money to buy the chain, she cut her long silky hair and sold it to buy her husband this gift. On Christmas day the two revealed what they had sacrificed to show the other how they loved them, and despite having no use for the gifts, they realized that they had a love that could withstand great sacrifice. 

What does it take to give good gifts? What can we do to become skilled at the art of gift giving? Well, Michael Angelo started by putting paint on canvas. If we want to be masters at expressing our gratitude, then we have to start at the beginning. This is part two in a three part series on the Art of Giving and Receiving gifts. Today I want to talk about how to give a good gift. Consider this an Intro to Beginners Gift Giving. I want to give here some basics on how to start giving good, real, meaningful gifts. Let's open our paint set and get started. 

As I see it, a gift can have value in two categories: functionality or practicality, and sentimental or personal value. I find that most gifts can be found along a spectrum between the two:
 

A broken treadmill is an awful gift, so are pictures of strangers. They have no practical or personal value. Your goal is strike a perfect balance between the two.Yes, that home made sweater took a lot of soul to make, but will they actually wear it? Cash is tacky, but useful. (Note. in my opinion, stay away from gift cards. They are less useful than cash, and try to affect emotional significance by saying, "Hey! I really know very little about you, but I assume that you can probably find something at Barnes and Noble/Best Buy/Other anonymous department store." Do the work, get them a real gift.) In giving a gift, we often try to be smarter than the person receiving the gift. We think, "What's something this person really needs or wants, but would never buy for themselves?" This is very difficult. Most of the time, if they wanted it, they could buy it themselves. You could run the risk of buying them something they can't afford, but that gift often becomes a shame and a burden to both of you. Or you could buy them something you know they don't have or haven't thought to buy for themselves, and run the risk of getting them something they don't actually want or wont use. 

We often start the whole gift giving process off on the wrong foot by asking, "What will this person want?" Instead of asking, "What will tell them how grateful I am for them?" Don't get me wrong, it's important to take what they want into account - but gift giving should revolve around the core question of how to love your recipient, not around getting them what they want. 

For this reason, and many others, I prefer homemade gifts. They have more character, usually take more time, and express more of the person giving and receiving the gift. The problem here is that a homemade gift often sacrifices practicality. These are the kinds of gifts children get their parents. Drawings on the fridge, popsicle stick picture frames, painted rock paper weights, etc. Parents love them because their kids made them, not because they really needed a paper weight. Unfortunately, we believe that we can't get away with this as adults. However the best gifts I have received have been made, albeit skillfully, by hand. One of the best gifts I ever received was from my Mom. I had no idea that she could draw, but for some reason she decided to give me a drawing of a dolphin that she had made into a refrigerator magnet. Why a dolphin? I have no idea. But it was an excellent gift because she made it, for me, to the best of her ability. It was a great drawing and I could use it to boot. Personal + functional = great gift. 

Frankly, I think we too often air on the practical side and buy gifts that have little personality. Like painting in black and white, we buy gifts for people at the same stores they are buying gifts for other people. If you would rather buy a gift than make one, why not find them something that would be hard for them to get themselves? Perhaps something at a garage sale, or antique store, or on ebay. Get them something that not anyone can get. It may sound rude at first to get them something that's been used, but perhaps they would like something with a little more color than X new video game or anonymous best seller - which they could probably buy themselves if they really wanted. 

What you need to give a good gift

So now that we've covered some basic gift theory, let's see what the ingredients of a good gift include. In my experience, all good gifts consist of four primary ingredients. Without these, your gift will be doomed to mediocrity. (Not that all mediocre gifts are bad, as we shall see. Occasionally a spontaneous gift with little forethought is the most perfect one. As with all art forms, a novice knows the rules, a master knows the exceptions.) So what goes into a good gift?

-Time - A good gift takes time. Time to decide what to get. Time to find it. Time to make it. Time to present it properly. This is why a good gift is so rare. The more time put into a gift, the better it is. It really depends on how much time you are willing to invest. For me this is that hardest part of giving a gift. Sometimes you may spend hours carefully deciding what you want to say with your gift, choosing what object would express that idea well, formulating a picture or idea in your mind, and systematically collecting or assembling each component of your gift, painting, sanding, knitting, welding, building. Or perhaps you may search garage sales and thrift stores religiously, surfing ebay compulsively looking for who knows what, until you stumble upon the perfect thing for a certain person like a flash of lightning. Until you have that sense of certainty about your gift, you haven't put in enough time. When you can say, "That is it!" with all assurance, you're golden. If ever think about your gift, "Well, this will do I suppose," even for a moment, you have chosen a mediocre gift. Investing time into your gift shows that you are willing to pay a cost for your recipient, which brings me to my next point.
 
-Cost - A good gift should cost you something. Now, this isn't necessarily money. Perhaps it's time, or emotional resources, or a good deal of research, creativity, and hard work. When we are willing to settle on cash or gift cards, we are saying precisely, "I am willing to spend 50 American dollars and 3 minutes of thought on you. No more, no less." I think the cost of a good gift should be greater, and more ambiguous. Perhaps your gift says, "I am willing to spend four hours thinking about you, glue, varnish, paint, $25, 12 working man hours, and a hammered thumb on getting you a good gift." That's more like it. The best gift I ever received was from a friend in college. It's a small cushioned kneeling pad used for prayer that my friend had sown an image of a thorny crown upon. It took her months to make. It's a beautiful thing. It has immense personal value, and I used it every day in the states. But what made it the perfect gift is that it reflected our relationship, and uniquely expressed both of our personalities. Her gift was enriched because of the context. 
 
-Context - None of these rules are hard and fast. There are times when cash is the most sincere and valuable gift a person can give. There are times when a delicate handmade gift is wildly inappropriate. It all depends on the context. Remember, a gift expresses the meaning of a relationship between one person and another person (or couple, or group of people). It should therefore reflect the unique characteristics of that relationship. A good gift has some history behind it. It has a story.  It should be the sum of all the experiences, conversations, struggles, reconciliations, good times, and bad that you have shared with that person. A good gift for one person is a terrible gift for another. Therefore, the deeper relationship you have with the person, the greater potential you have to give a meaningful gift. The context of a gift is often the hardest to navigate, it really takes some delicacy and artfulness to do it well. But when considered with precision, it is context that gives a gift its meaning. 

-Love - A gift can't express what isn't there. Unless you genuinely love and feel gratitude toward your recipient, how can you possibly give them a good gift? In fact, what's the point of getting a gift for someone you don't love? A good gift cannot be given under compulsion. This is why I'm generally against secret santas and other games like it. This is also why it's a shame that gift giving has been marginalized to Christmas, Valentines, and birthdays. The spontaneity and unexpectedness of a gift is a supremely important tool in our gift giving toolbox. Why? Because an unexpected gift says, "The love I have for you is not restricted to the time of the year when I'm expected to get something for you." A gift given under compulsion isn't a gift, it's a payment. A tax. Whereas a gift given out of love is immediately recognized. Taking gift giving seriously may mean that you actually end up giving less gifts that you are used to. That's ok. After all, gifts are about quality, not quantity. And a mediocre gift, given without love, will be soon forgotten. 

I realize that this is a lot to ask, especially for those who are expected to give several gifts to multiple people each year. Giving a good gift costs a lot of personal resources. If I could give only one gift a year to one person, but have it be a truly good gift, I would do so in a heartbeat. Most of the time I would rather not receive a gift at all than receive one that had little meaning or effort behind it. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I would rather that the giver save their resources for his or her own needs than spend them getting a gift that doesn't work. That being said, receiving a gift is almost as delicate an art as giving one. Next week, I'll complete this series by talking about how to receive a gift well, with grace and gratitude. 

Friday, November 18, 2011

Concerning the Art of Giving and Receiving Gifts

Following my last post which may have been on the abstract side, I wanted to write about something more practical. As many of us are preparing for a season of the year commonly associated with gift giving, the most physical form of gratitude, I think it would be prudent to spend some time celebrating gifts themselves - a topic of great personal interest to me. The subject of gift giving is indeed so broad that I have decided to split the discussion into three posts over the coming weeks. This week I want to talk about gift giving as an art form, followed next week by ideas for giving genuine gifts, and finally advice on receiving a gift gracefully with real gratitude. 

An Art

Perhaps you've never considered the giving of presents as an art form before. When we think of gifts, most of us imagine large boxes wrapped in colorful paper. Either mechanically purchased by parents from Santa's wish list - which produces a room full of spent ribbon and plastic wrap, shiny new objects of no real emotional significance, and distressed parents who wonder if the fuss and bratty attitudes were even worth it. Or perhaps we think of gifts as awkwardly and painstakingly chosen for an office party or secret santa project, in which givers feel obligated to produce something meaningful for someone they may barely know, and receivers dread the moment when they have to pretend that they're excited by their new sweater, gift card, snow globe, etc. It is not hard to understand why gift giving has been reduced to a monetary maximum or done away with altogether among families across America during the holidays, barring special occasions and relationships. I think this is a big reason why some people hide their birthdays from their coworkers, and dread as the holidays approach. Often, the idea of giving or receiving a gift from someone is dreadful. 

But consider for a moment the greatest gift you have ever received. I don't mean in the more abstract sense of the word, that is, how we might describe the gift of our mother's love during our childhood, or the gift of forgiveness, or grace, or something else like this. No, by "gift" I mean a specific physical object, chosen with intention by one person, and given, without compulsion or expectation of reciprocation, for the purpose of expressing a love for another. This is an important question whether or not you want to give good gifts. It's especially important if you want to be a grateful person. What is the greatest gift anyone has ever given you? 

When asked this question, a friend of mine recently told me the following story: As a young boy, he enjoyed hunting with his father. They often went hunting with a friend of the family from the neighborhood. He hunted with this man for several years, they spent a lot of time together and established a relationship. Alongside his father, the man taught him how to hunt well - how to track, how to pack out a buck, how to care for his equipment. As my friend grew into adolescence, he learned that the man was in declining health. He saw him less and less, until one day, my friend and his father stopped by the man's house to say hello. While they were chatting, the man called him into the room where he kept his rifles. By now a young man, my friend stood in the doorway and watched as the man slowly looked over his collection of firearms.  He reached up and carefully pulled down his deer rifle, the crown jewel of his collection. The man hefted the gun in his hands and emptied the chamber. He pulled it up to his eye, looked through the scope at one final imaginary buck, and handed it to the young man. "Take care of it," he said. My friend humbly thanked him and went home. The man died some time later. 

A good gift, given well, can express what words cannot. When we give a gift, we make a choice. Every day we are surrounded by, and interact with, people and things that make our lives meaningful. Think about the objects in your life of deep personal significance. A blanket from your childhood. A nice set of tools that you and your Dad use. An old family sofa that you slept on on sunday afternoons. A familiar coffee mug. Our days are filled with seemingly inconsequential things that become valuable and  comfortable to us through use over time. It's why we can say things like, "Where is that one jacket that I like?" "I love this coffee maker" "Where is the good shovel?" Out of that deep pool of physical objects we have at our disposal, out of all the tools, toys, and items through which have our little pleasures, earn our bread, speak our minds, build meaningful things, have our daily lives; out of all of the things we can hold in our hands, we choose a single object, and entrust it with the impossible task of conveying our love for another human being. If invested with time, meaning, deliberation - what is divine can be shown in what is transitory. A good gift, given well, is a work of art. 

People write books, paint pictures, make music - they do Art to show everyone what is inside of them. An artist may try and capture something great, something beautiful to put on display for all to see. But a gift is different. The giving of a gift narrows all of the intention and beauty of a symphony into one moment, designed for a specific person. It's an opportunity to create a deep, meaningful, unique experience that is only for the giver and the receiver. Something memorable that will act as a physical remainder of your gratitude.

It's not easy. A gift given like this is exceedingly rare. A true masterpiece takes a master in any art form. And gift giving is increasingly becoming a lost art. However, done perfectly, under the perfect circumstances, given with grace, a gift can change a relationship forever.

God, how I wish I could give a single good gift! Perhaps just one perfect gift within an entire lifetime, given with such grace and delicacy, chosen with such skill, at the right place and the right time, that I could show the ones that I love perfectly how grateful I am for them. 

Spend time this following week remembering the good gifts that have been given to you. What made them good? Why do they stick out in your memory? What other things were going on in your life with the giver that made these gifts meaningful? What did these gifts say about your relationship? Next week we'll look at the tools of a gift giving novice, so we can begin practicing the art of good gift giving, and hopefully one day, with practice, become master gift givers. 

Friday, November 11, 2011

Gratitude as Honesty

It's often the case that the virtues we try to practice support, reflect, and blend in with one another. There's a sort of wholeness or resemblance among the family of virtues. Sometimes being courageous means practicing humility. Other times being charitable means having patience. Today I want to talk about how two of my favorite virtues intertwine, but before I can get to that, we'll have to lay out some metaphysics. 

There are two types of people. First there are those that believe the Earth is essentially a good place. That the world has been designed and built for human beings to inhabit, or that it's at least a homey and valuable habitat for us humans. However despite the world being essentially good, due to our vices, sin, chance, physics, etc. what is good about the world is also plagued with evil. Death, destruction, exploitation, what have you. 

Then there are those who believe the universe is, at best, indifferent to our presence and completely neutral in regard to our human dramas and crises, and at worst, an actively hostile place. Essentially bad, brutal, violent - albeit with a few glimmering rays of good things here and there. 

I am of the former group. There is a lot of rottenness in the world, but at bottom I believe that we live in a good place, that what is good can and will be redeemed of the bad. I believe not only that God is - but that he is for us, rather than against us.

Now, if you'll indulge me a little more philosophy here, if you believe that the world is a good place - that we humans make our homes here in reality, and that what is real is good for us - than it follows that the truth is a good thing for us to know. If the way things really are is good, then we have no need for deception or falsehood. It's the man who lives in the shack who wants to pretend that he lives in a palace, not the man in the mansion house.

If you're an existentialist, you'll probably think something opposite. That the truth is actually too awful and meaningless for us poor folk to bear, and that it's better to live under a happy illusion without too much regard for what Truth or Reality is really about. That we actually all live in the slums, so we'd best get good at pretending we don't.

I'm not an existentialist, so let's get to the point: Gratitude is simply recognizing and accepting what we already know to be true, and believing that that truth is good for us. Namely, the truth that everything we have ever had is a gift; that we've really done nothing to deserve anything we get.

If you believe in God, this should be easy to swallow more or less. Our lives, our health, our friends, family, skills, memories, possessions, our very breath, - everything good is faithfully provided by the creator of everything. Gratitude is simply keeping this truth at the forefront of your mind each and every moment of each and every day. Cake.


If you don't believe in God, this truth should be even easier to get a grip around. "Now wait just a minute," my fine existentialist says, "Well I've got my job here as a clerk at the Barnes and Noble, a job I got by filling out an application with my own pen in my own hand. I earned this job because of the work that I put into making myself attractive to employers." Slow down there, Sartre. You may have put the pen to paper, but that's only because some years ago, some sweet tired lady made you write, "The cat sat on the mat" over and over again. And that lady was there because some folks way back decided they needed a lady to teach their little squirts how to write "The cat sat on the mat" and so they set up a fund and a committee and all manner of other things until everybody around knew exactly where the cat sat, and that we've all got to get that paycheck so we can buy our soup. 

Someone taught you how to fill out an application. Someone taught you that it's good to have a job. Someone gave you the notion that if you work hard you'll be happier. Someone gave you money to buy pens with.

Everything that you might claim as your own, your job, your skills, your effort, your money, your relationships, your beliefs, the jokes you tell, the blogs you write, the fields you till, the decisions you make, the pants you wear - Everything. They all have causes and conditions that came into place long before you were conceived. And these things were only brought about because you happened to be in the right place, at the right time, made the right choices, based on the beliefs that other people taught you. It is only through the merest effort on your part that you have anything you have. And even the effort that you did expend was given to you, because somebody somewhere taught you that it's good for you to show up and work hard every once in awhile. The existentialist may not have a God to say thanks to, or even an individual person, but he can still admit that the good things in his life came out of something he had, at best, very little control over.

And that's what Gratitude is. It's about admitting that your along for the ride by the grace of God or chance. Like so many virtues, the difference between Gratitude and Honesty is seamless. Grateful people are honest people. They can have their lives stripped from them and still be ok, because they recognize the truth - that they didn't really do much to earn it to begin with. 

And if you're like me, you know that this is good. The truth is healthy for us to know, and we thrive on the way the world actually is. We function better, because we have an accurate picture of our place in the universe. 

In other words, once you realize that what you have has been given to you, it's easier to be grateful for it. It's also harder to get bent out of shape when something doesn't go your way, because you recognize that the hours you have are a gift. You've simply been put temporarily in charge of them.

So the next time you do something you enjoy, you bite into a fresh pear, you throw a strike while bowling, you have a beer with your friends - take a minute to think of all the mediating variables that had to occur in order to bring that situation about. Think about the farmer who planted the seed, that grew the corn, that was picked by the migrant worker, then shipped to that factory in Tacoma, mashed by a machine built in Detroit, baked and shipped to the kitchen, and then put in a little bowl and brought out to you by Amber at the La Comida. Think of the hundred year old pine that was felled by Ron in Alberta, then treated at the plant, driven on a truck by a man who just had a baby girl, cut and shaped by the craftsman in Boise, meticulously painted white and red by Jorge, boxed, shipped, unloaded, and set on the bowling alley floor to wait years and years for your ball to come rolling down the lane.

 Take a moment to savor the improbable truth of everything around you, and like adding the right spices to a meal, Gratitude will serve to refine and deepen the pleasure of your life. 

Friday, November 4, 2011

The Secret to Happiness

Happiness is not pursued, it is recognized.

A man took his two young sons to a park. There was this huge park on the edge of town they lived in, and he wanted to bring his boys there on his day off from work. The place sprawled for acres. There were massive fields, a ball park, swimming holes, jungle gyms, and hundreds of other kids for his sons to play with - all bathed in sunlight and covered by a late summer breeze. The two boys spent the entire day, until sundown, building forts, swimming, climbing, jumping, getting hurt, having battles with sticks and dirt clods, and sampling from the robust menu of boyhood activities. As the sun went down the father called his two boys to him, and told them it was time to go home.

The foolish son fiercely protested. Having forgotten immediately the joy of the gift he had received in this trip from his father, he began to cry, whine, and fret over his pleasures being taken from him. How cruel of his father, he thought, to bring them to such a great place - only to take it away after having only a taste. In his forgetfulness, he believed that he would have been better off if his father had kept him inside at home all day rather than whet his appetite in such a way. His bitterness against his father soured all the joy he had had during the day, and utterly corrupted the whole experience. His ride home was spent in silent brooding, he simmered like burning coals until they arrived at home and he was diverted toward the activities of the evening.

The wise son spent the ride home quietly recalling all of the days adventures and was happy that his Dad had brought him to such a place. He took the joys of the day and stretched them to their limit by remembering. The boy recognized that he and his brother had done nothing to deserve the trip, neither of them being particularly good students, but that the park was simply something special his Dad wanted to show him. From this and days like it, the wise son knew not only that his father loved him, but that he had good things for him, and that the end of one good day meant the beginning of more good things - a warm dinner at home, a hot shower, and the particular kind of sleep that only comes at the end of a long Saturday at the park.

The two boys, each having had the exact same experience, interpreted it in exact opposite ways. One boy in bitterness, the other boy enjoying the "good to which all things aim" - happiness.

Lives of all sorts are spent running after happiness. Men and women throughout history have been desperately running, fighting, biting, struggling, sweating, thrashing, and killing after this one thing. Pouring themselves out on the altar of "happiness". So many have wasted their strength trying to get that "one thing" that will make them happy, only to look back to see that their best years have been spent in misery, mediocrity, and bitterness - entire nations have been built on the idea that happiness can be pursued, found, and captured if only you are willing to give up everything for it. I'm convinced there is a better way.

Happiness is not pursued, it is recognized. Happiness is chasing after the carrot on a stick, only to realize you have an apple in your pocket.

What is the secret to happiness? What does the one boy have that the other lacks?

Gratitude.

The one boy forgets the good things he has been given, and that he did nothing to earn them, and only remembers when those things have been taken from him. The other boy remembers that he deserved nothing to begin with, and was able to see the day as a gift. One boy had gratitude, the other did not.

Psychologist are beginning to realize what world religions have been trying to teach for thousands of years. Grateful people have better mental health, are better able to cope with big life changes, have better well being, and are happier people in general. They even get better sleep than ungrateful people. Gratitude is the oil for the machine that is the human being. It's a perspective, a choice, a habit, and an art form, that human beings are designed to function under.

It's my goal here to train in the art of gratitude. To become a master in it. Like any skill, proficiency comes with practice. Like any muscle, strength comes with exercise. My writings here will be dedicated to understanding the virtue of gratitude, meditating on it, recognizing it in others, and most importantly practicing it. Becoming grateful is a matter of accepting certain truths, and embedding them in our character through practice. I hope that you will help in learning this delicate virtue by writing, thinking, talking, struggling, and acting along with me here. It's my hope that by doing these things with the goal of becoming grateful people, we might "learn the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want".