Gratitude

This indebtedness thing is tricky, and I can see the negative valence it has. But as with Karen’s potlatch example and Mariangeles’ musing, I think there is a positive valence to play out too. I can speak for myself and say that when I have received a gift that is freely given with no strings attached, I do not feel indebted–I feel gratitude and the affirmative desire to reciprocate the generosity. And here’s some utopian thinking: when a gift is given freely without anticipating a return, that desire to reciprocate does not necessarily make a straight path right back to the giver, but can spread out in any direction; we’re talking a rhizome of random acts of kindness, and all that.