There is giving, and then there is bribery. The difference between genuine giving and bribery is in giving there are no conditions. You give because you are adding to the world. It’s bribery if you are giving to induce a condition, and there is no reason to accept bribery.
Love. Expect nothing in return? Yes, and not expecting is necessary. Expectations aren’t giving, they are making the giving into bribery, and nothing about bribery is receiving. Nothing about it is enriching. It tends to be stagnating, and prevents growth in the one who gives with conditions and the one entangled by that form of giving. When a child gives they give from the heart, without expectation. To deny that child’s gift is non-reciprocation, because there wasn’t any expectation. The child was sharing their joy as is there nature, perhaps in a flower or rock, this enriches life, does it not? But the system we have discourages that, and it isn’t about material or money. It’s about the willingness and desire to give, and the openness to receive because by receiving you engage life. You embrace it and acknowledge that you are one with it. If we all lived like this, what would there be left to want?
To keep enjoying? It’s the only thing that could allow enduring enjoyment.
But for that you would need to have the same concept of time a child has, and live only here and now? In fact, all that you can do is now. You can’t do anything about yesterday nor tomorrow, and your tomorrow is very factually an outgrowth of today. We do seek to enrich ourselves, and we can only do that now.
If you give expecting another’s gratitude that is a problem. If you give knowing how it will better things and draw your joy from that, then there is no problem. I have given books people desired because they wanted to use that book, and I got great enjoyment from seeing them use the book. You can only be dependant on joy when you aren’t receptive to joy, the non-receiving creates the dependency.
In the case of addiction, does anyone know an addict who allowed themselves to be supported, and I mean in all ways? Were you in recovery before you allowed that support? Addictions and dependencies of all kind come from a sense of lack, internal or external. To allow support makes people question their lack, and thus all the pain they suffer loses meaning. They can’t orient. It gets very confusing and scary. It’s a vicious cycle, and it doesn’t have to be a dramatic dependency. I know people who are dependant on optimism. They don’t have optimism, optimism has them, and it’s from the notion that they “must” give. That it’s morally right, and they have no choices that aren’t also morally right. This isn’t true of course.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~