The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World Paperback – September 24, 2019

This book almost immediately became a favorite. It has helped me work through some of my conundrums about why monetizing my art can feel complicated and draining. I love that it is full of history, sociology and anthropology and deals with far more than the creative navigating gift giving through art in this world, but gift giving socially and historically and the implications it therefore has on me as a person needing to express myself creatively and also make a living.

When another artist recommended this book during a studio visit and critique, I decided to pick it up right away, prompted by how she was *so* enthusiastic about it. (I respect her a lot as a very down-to-earth, unpretentious, intellectual, well-read, prestigiously-educated, nose-to-the grindstone labor-intensive but philosophical type artist.) Once I was a few chapters in, I couldn’t believe I’d not found my way into The Gift before. It was a “where have you been all my life?!” experience. It helped me see from different angles what I had already been grappling with for years.For instance: Ever since reading Adrian Piper in school, I’ve wanted to participate in a different kind of art economy than what Piper calls “the zero-sum game.” One based on cooperation and more allied to barter/trade. My attempts at creating/fostering such a thing have been awkward, tentative, incomplete, overwhelming, full of doubt. The Gift renewed my commitment to participating in an exchange of art that seems more moral, more authentic, etc. Old folktales, as they often do, lent themselves to new ideas for how to proceed in my own practice. Now, today, here.The Gift addresses many other questions I find vitally relevant — necessary: In which ways does one’s creative production result in (a.) enlightenment (b.) transportation/transcendence (c.) embodiment/reincarnation? In which ways does a creator adequately GIVE BACK what has been received (in terms of talent, inspiration, natural resources, social/cultural/economic privilege…) How does an artist NOT naval-gaze, masturbate, gobble, horde, waste, squander, etc.? How does one justify, honor, and live up to the creative “gifts” that have been bestowed?Basically, reading The Gift gave me a lot of new ways of thinking about solving the problems of making art, surviving dry spells, being in harmony with the ways of Life, Nature, and Creativity…in a way that is surprisingly, somehow, not as cringe and self-help-like as many writings I’ve read. I keep several of the folktales and practices of indigenous peoples in mind as I rethink and revise my metaphorical and practical personal artistic manifesto.P.S. Interesting, detailed comparison/contrast of Ezra Pound and Walt Whitman, though it seemed like a whole separate book to me.

Purchased for a class. Good price

Very informative fun read with some hilarious insights—reminds me of my first encounter with Sarah Hrdy. Women scientists are the best!

The capitalist "game," if you will, depends on us believing that we live and die as isolated, selfish, and self-serving "economic organisms" surrounded by a greedy host of similar animals. Think Thomas Hobbes' "war of all against all." We engage in this story-image anytime we buy any "consumable." The money we work so hard to earn and spend has reduced value to number. What we buy with that money indicates our success in the game of scarcity. The game of scarcity drives our "economic engine" by converting the gifts of nature into abstractions that we then bet on by purchasing, hoarding, or helping to make them. Scarcity rules not only hard "commodities," like gold, oil, corn, and soybeans, but every artifact of human creation, from education (student as product and consumer), to "intellectual property," to air, water, and the genetic material that some of us think of as the basis for life itself.OK. How do we change the game? The simplest, one-word solution I've heard is this: give. Give away your time, give away your stuff -- give away your garden tomatoes and zukes (and your seeds!), your money, your ideas, stories, knowledge, love. Work for love. Count your time in friendship and beauty instead of dollars.And it's happening! All over: barter fairs, gift exchange, "creative commons" licensing, open-source software, wikipedia and other free, collaborative websites, skill-shares, simplicity, downsizing, small houses, twelve-step and other "support" groups, community choral groups, gift economies, "unfocused and ill-defined" (non-reducible) activities like occupy and anonymous -- and even prosaic things like listserves. (In the "old days" -- pre-internet -- I participated in a similar kind of thing we called "book group" where we actually sat down together and shared food and friendship as well as ideas...)"The Gift," by Lewis Hyde, inspires, encourages, and provides a solid historical/sociological/anthropological basis for such beliefs and practices. While it is often touted as a book "for artists," I would argue that it should be required reading for every student of humanity, whether your interest is economics, politics, education, or anything else. (Indeed, if you understand the word "art" in it's original and traditional meaning, it simply indicates a particular method by which a person participates in the game of life, whether you paint and sculpt, or teach, install toilets, farming, fix teeth, or darn socks. It's all art (etymologically, the indo-european root "ar" simple means "to fit together," as in "harmony," "order," "ratio," "reason," "ordain," etc. So in that traditional sense, yes, the book is "for artists." But the original subtitle was "Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property." I'm glad to see a new, more accurate subtitle replacing the fuzzy version on the 2d edition ("Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World"). For a marketing tag line, the author suggested: "bad-boy critic takes on Vampire Economy." That about sums it up.Refreshingly, Hyde suggests no other "ism" to replace the capitalist one. He does explain the gift-oriented roots of capitalist sacraments like interest (a fascinating (biblical) story about the difference in relations between near neighbors and distant trading partners). And he reviews our common roots in a common history of giving and receiving -- a history of human exchange in a natural world where we're all unique and particular members of a single story.It is a story we need to examine and understand in greater depth so that, when faced with the shallow lies of capitalist, consumer economics, we can nourish ourselves and each others with the deeper truths that bind us.We can harm this world -- we can depopulate and/or pollute it -- but we can't change it. The (galactic and universal) Gift will outlive us, no matter what we do, so why fight against that truth when we can participate, so easily?

I wish I had not bought this book but it was mentioned in a Masterclass on writing and I was compelled. It is page after page of exhausting philosophizing that borders on the incoherent for all but the niche reader with a doctorate in related topics. Take this sentence - 'something related to the spirt of usury lies in the removal of energy from the esemplastic powers and its reinvestment in the analytic or reflective powers.' This is how the creative spirt transforms the world? I have a masters degree and am a published author myself and reading this book is like chewing gravel. There are much better books to inspire your creativity. Not this one!