{"id":292,"date":"2008-07-10T23:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T23:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/?p=292"},"modified":"2010-07-23T20:04:46","modified_gmt":"2010-07-24T01:04:46","slug":"giving-and-receiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/?p=292","title":{"rendered":"Giving and receiving = utopia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The 365 Tao, 103, on Reciprocity (paraphrased):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hands grasp, but also give; and can teach us generosity.<\/li>\n<li>Mouths taste, but also speak; and can teach us to give thanks in word and song.<\/li>\n<li>Noses breathe, but also smell; and can teach us to learn from our environment.<\/li>\n<li>Eyes see, but also show; and can teach us to show compassion and sincerity.<\/li>\n<li>Ears hear, but also balance; and can teach us to remain balanced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The eyes \u2013some say virtual windows to the soul\u2013\u00a0of a dedicated person show an inner fortitude and charisma that the eyes of the ordinary do not.\u00a0Each one of our senses gathers information and also serves as a channel of expression. All parts of ourselves give and receive; functioning on the principle of reciprocity inherent in their very character. Perhaps we can learn from our senses.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Google &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=tis+better+to+give+than+to+receive&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8\" target=\"_blank\">tis better to give than to receive<\/a>&#8221; and you&#8217;ll find that scientific research backs up the line attributed to Jesus in the book of Acts. However, living the suggestion in a consumer-society requires discipline and faith. As a closet utopian I love to entertain the notion of a society where we all simply do what we love; give away the fruits of our labor, spontaneously, from our hearts; without thought or expectation of return or payment; with the faith that our needs (or even wants) will somehow be met. Yet in my life as a micro business\u00a0entrepreneur I must constantly put a price on my services.\u00a0While I do practice heartfelt giving in my art and other areas of my life; I&#8217;v previously found it difficult to practice in my business. Some suggest that the &#8220;give-away&#8221; in business will also find its reciprocal balance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Yesterday I gave a professional friend some professional service, straight from the heart, without expectations of any kind. Today the gift was reciprocated. Maybe Jesus knew what he was talking about.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let&#8217;s all give work towards utopia without expecting to achieve it. To get started watch\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&amp;feature=user\" target=\"_blank\">this video <\/a><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;\"> (be sure to\u00a0click &#8220;watch in high quality&#8221; to the lower right, under the video\u00a0controls)<span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;\">. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 365 Tao, 103, on Reciprocity (paraphrased): Hands grasp, but also give; and can teach us generosity. Mouths taste, but also speak; and can teach us to give thanks in word and song. Noses breathe, but also smell; and can teach us to learn from our environment. Eyes see, but also show; and can teach [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,34,29,61,30,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-thoughts","category-people","category-self-expression","category-tao","category-video","category-zen","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2817,"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/2817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imagist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}