Post #152: Giving and Sharing

16 Oct. 2024

“The Awakened One said: ‘If beings knew, as I know, the benefits of giving and sharing, they would not eat another mouthful without having shared some of their meal, nor would the stain of meanness ever overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, they would not eat without having shared, if there were someone to receive their gift.”

—Itivuttaka 26

     It has long been said in polite circles that one should not talk about money, at least not in public. Such embarrassment, mixed with superciliousness, usually stems from having too much of a good thing. (Meden agan—μηδὲν ἄγαν—it said on the wall outside the oracle at Delphi: nothing in excess, or all things in moderation. It’s not a matter of how much you have, but of how much measure you can keep, whatever your possessions.) I trust that I have made myself clear enough that money does not discomfit me (so long as I am not too hard-up). I consider it an ingenious, eminently practical invention that can, and should, be put to good uses, with nothing to bellyache about unless one is desperately short, or doing with it what one should not (see #37 and others).

     I trust it is also evident by now, both from my writing itself and from the manner in which the site is presented, that “monetizing” what I have to share forms no part of my intention. Indeed the current obsession with turning anything and everything to coin brings to money precisely that vulgarity which is not inherent in it, but which derives altogether from the motives, the grace and skillfulness (or lack thereof), of those who use it well or ill, generously or poorly, admirably or contemptibly.

     A main point of reference for me, when it comes to raising money, is the funding of the Vipassana meditation centers where I have done all my retreats to date. Nobody ever gets charged so much as a dime for a course, whether for ten days or up to ninety, not even to defray the running costs. Donations are accepted only from students who have completed at least one ten-day course, and none must ever be solicited. There are desks, at the end of every retreat, where one may give what one wishes, but no amounts are suggested, and no one is ever pressured. Other organizations may make the same promise; not many deliver on it.

     I have not made any profits with my writing here, nor asked anyone for anything money-wise, and that is as it should be. The most I’ve been willing to do is to put in place a “begging bowl” where unsolicited donations can be made; this has been ignored completely, by well over thousand different visitors, with only a single exception. That lonely contribution, early on, covered the running costs for my site for perhaps a month at most; the rest has been on me entirely for the past year and a half, and with no complaint. (I am not talking about the cost in time and effort, that is, opportunity cost by any description, but out-of-pocket expenses only.)

     The annual expense of keeping the site up is such that I can well afford it now that I have, this past handful years, been freed at last from the hideous money-worries that have bedeviled most of my adult life. I am quite happy to make this modest expenditure part of my exercise in sharing—almost the full range of my ideas and experiences, via a pen sharpened at considerable cost in all manner of currencies over several decades—and I certainly do not expect to be recompensed. But there is one consideration that has kept me from taking down the donation button that nobody is using, and instead to add the question, about a fortnight ago, whether a visitor might wish to give a few bucks to help with the maintenance of the site.

     It’s not just a matter of finding a good use for the little green and red man—a small tribute to Berlin, once my home town, where these two mark the pedestrian crossings—but also of a deeper issue that aligns, I believe, with the general tone and concerns of this site. So far as I can tell, looking inward, I really do not expect much by way of compensation for my labors, except perhaps not to be completely ignored and not to be abused for holding the wrong views. If a few readers, even a tiny circle, have benefited, even in the smallest ways, from what I’ve been saying, then I would consider it payment enough. And that is not just bullshit. At the same time, there remains the fact that money is not a dirty word for me, but something that needs to be handled wisely, meaning, as generously and gracefully as one can, with an ever-open hand, in the spirit of the Dhamma.

     And that is where my unavailing experiments with the begging bowl and the little men comes in. It is not that contributions of any sort are required, least of all financial ones. A shared prayer, or an inward thank you that I never get to hear, would be quite enough. In a money-minded age, however, one should  probably practice expressing oneself well in the monetary idiom too, meaning, in ways that are not just self-interested. What that should translate into concretely and specifically, I could not and would not say. Like my meditation centers, which refuse to specify anything at all in this regard, I will not say what is appropriate for anyone. In most cases, zero may well be the right number, as I have seen these past eighteen months. But is it really right more than a thousand times? I wonder.

     A very small, very significant inner circle of very loyal readers has been sharing a great deal of their time and attention with me—almost to the point where I feel I should apologize for imposing on them. (They know who they are: thank you all, again!) Obviously I am not suggesting that in addition to doing so much to sustain my efforts and making me feel that what I have been doing is worthwhile, they should now reach into their wallets as well. That would be absurd, and it’s not at all what I getting at. I also understand, and appreciate, that readers share their time simply by bothering with visiting my site, and I don’t take that for granted either—not at all given how much else is competing for everyone’s attention. Indeed I don’t think I am telling anyone what they should be doing, only that giving and sharing are worth thinking about. (Students at my college I must ask please not to give anything owing to very strict rules in that regard.)

     The value of a used car, and other items of ready exchange, might be captured by what others are willing to give for it, though much can go wrong (think lemons): but what of a sacred text, or someone’s reflections thereupon? What price the faintest ray of wisdom, if it were to shine forth for a fleeting moment? What price even the most stumbling approach, so long as it is real? Can anyone really believe that a financial bottom line tells us much of what we want, and need, to know in this regard? The very suggestion is surely ridiculous.

     An age as bent as ours on monetizing even the most banal (or intimate) aspects of our lives is bound to forget, or at least grievously to neglect, that l’art pour art used to be said for good reason. (How many still dare to utter today what used to be a mere cliché before? That is why one can say it again without blushing.) Granted, much that gives itself artistic airs in the world is mere pretention and conceit, or outright bullshit; granted, too, that the ability to popularize without compromising the integrity of one’s work and the dignity of one’s Muse is a precious skill. Where it can be done without loss, let it be done! The skillful popularizer shall have his reward.

     Even so, the difficult relationship between worthy work and its fruits cannot just be wished away (#47). Alas, the purity of our efforts is all-too easily lost when the profit-motive becomes too predominant. Not that we would all need to be saints to make things worthwhile, but intentions matter—artistic karma, one might say—and the commercial motive is not always helpful to the true, the good, and the beautiful, to put it mildly. Of course a few great artists are equally great sellers: but when a Picasso or a van Gogh sells for hundreds of millions, it is not because the art is so uniquely great, but because the names are so widely known. It’s the celebrity that moves the product, not the other way around. The Mona Lisa might conceivably fetch a billion (Lord have mercy), if it were ever put on the market, not because hers is the best portrait ever painted, but because is it’s the best known.

     Aside from the highly exceptional case of the artist-celebrity, it has invariably been patronage, the support by appreciative and generous connoisseurs (or sometimes simply snobs) with money to spare, not the consumer market, that has traditionally been the serious artist’s best friend and most reliable life-support. What goes for art in general applies to the art of living just the same: to the extent that exercises in such a direction deserve to be called artful, and not just problem-solving and goal-directed, they will not often find ready followers, nor should they. Genuine art, of any kind, makes demands; it requires discernment; it may look easy at times, but the effortless quality about it is in fact the most difficult to produce. Thus human artistry in any of its higher expressions, whatever the department, is something that will not be recognized by the masses almost by definition. The ancient Greek expressed a timeless truth, too easily dismissed today, when they attributed any kind of excellence to “the few” as against “the many.”

     Inaccessibility can be no recommendation: “The light of humane minds is perspicuous words,” as Hobbes wrote in his Leviathan (I.v.20). Obscurity is bad enough, obfuscation intolerable. Only there are a few good reasons, among many wretched ones, why something might be difficult to access. Hobbes himself is no easy read, if you are not used to his style, but he’s a beautiful writer nonetheless, and not obscure at all, only subtle. If you stumble over a word like perspicuous, even when it would be easy to look up, is that the author’s fault? He should not use fancy vocabulary just to show off, granted, and that gets done often enough; but can you expect him to eschew the perfect word just because you might not know it off-hand? Is it reasonable to expect him to adjust his style to yours, to forgo his refinements for your simplicity’s sake? Why should you be the measure of all things, not the genius of the language, or the spirit of what is possible, rather than what is easy? “Fine,” you say, “but I still don’t want to make the effort—and you can’t make me!” That’s right, I cannot, and I wouldn’t want to. It’s your call; but this is where we get the few and the many, as a fact of human life, not just an elitist affectation.

     Much as I enjoy writing, I don’t think I would make the required effort for myself alone, at least not on the scale of the past few years. (I wrote much over the twenty years before, but I kept it between myself and a few close friends and correspondents.) It’s not a matter of sacrificing myself; I would imagine that the balance must be coming out positive for me at some level, or I wouldn’t be able to raise the ample energy needed to keep going—just not in digits at the bottom of a ledger. There are many more currencies, and many more precious ones, than get traded on foreign exchange markets: attention, affection, appreciation, gratitude, love.

     So why should it bother me in the least that over the past year and a half only a single person has seen fit to give anything? I am not needy, not these days at least; the survival of the site is not at stake; and I disavow commercial motives, not because I object to them in principle, but because they are not appropriate here. Why should I feel any twinge of disappointment, however faint? Is it that I feel insufficiently appreciated, when I’ve just said that there are plenty of other currencies that matter much more? Am I so much of a money-lover, despite my protestations to the contrary, that I feel my efforts are getting devalued when they are not accompanied by the clicking of the cash register? Am I perhaps a hypocrite after all?

     May the Buddha be my witness, I do so hope not. So far as I am aware, it has more to do with the epigraph (one of my favorites in the Pali Canon) than with my own interests in the narrow, let alone the pecuniary sense. It would gladden me if the green button were used a little more often—perhaps in the manner of the poor widow whom Jesus held up for admiration on account of the two small copper coins she left at the temple, pennies as it were—on account of the good it does all of us to give and share, on the one hand, and to receive gifts rather than what we are owed, on the other, not always to think in terms of prices or the figures on our account statements, whether as buyers or as sellers.

     Why not put it to the test: click either of the little men and see what happens. No need to fear the red: you will not get told off or lectured. Either way, some good may come of it. Who knows?