“Do unto another’s as you would do unto your own.”
—G. I. Gurdjieff, All & Everything
A strange family moved into my house this weekend. Not strange as in odd, just to me. They were a pleasant couple, with first one and then two college-age children staying over, and their dog, who introduced himself by shitting on the floor.
I say it was strange because the circumstances of the family coming to the house were hazy in my mind. My wife arranged it—the connection being that their son is friends of my son’s ex-girlfriend. In the end, my wife needed to travel, so I received the guests alone.
This is not to complain. The result was good. They were fine guests, really pleasant and present. We discovered commonalities and connections, had breakfast together, and I was genuinely pleased to know them.
Still, it took me a moment to get used to the feeling that there were strangers in my house. I saw that I had an idea that the family making themselves at home in my house for the weekend should be my friends, or at least share an intention to become friends. And since we weren’t already friends, and had no particular plans to be, I felt the arising of a subtle vapor of resentment.
Seeing my hesitation to share my house, and the impulse of possessiveness, was a shock. I began to interrogate what it means to say this is my house. Mainly it means I am responsible for the house, I thought. I have to be sure the plumbing works and the paint isn’t peeling and the lawn is mowed with enough frequency to prevent the place from looking abandoned.
Below the surface there is a long body of experience: joys and sufferings, unfolding phases of life. My children grew to maturity in this house. My mother-in-law lived her last years and died here. So the house is almost an extension or embodiment of my soul. While the notion of ownership is clearly an invented construct, the feeling of connection with things is quite real.
In bygone days there was the commons, property owned by everyone and no one, and available for both collective care and use. It was the field that the village farmed or pastured together; the shared water from the aquifer; sunlight, which shines without prejudice.
The convention of ownership is a pillar of the prevailing economy. We see the injustices and violence used to support it. More and more, we feel this economy deals in counterfeit currency, and that its abstraction leads to false valuation.
But the counterfeit coin proves the existence of real gold. We intuit that there is another kind of economy based in a living ecosystem and genuine value. We see it in nature, in which every being forms a part of a whole. All is interconnected, supporting the whole through its healthy independent existence.
Perhaps the best embodiment of sharing is the air. The air shares itself with all of us. Plants, animals, and humans all breathe—both taking from the air and giving back to it. The air supports life and is supported by life. The air conducts vibrations, sound, and frequencies we don’t consciously perceive. The air is a spiritual medium because it only gives and never takes. Emulating these qualities of air may be a means to participate in an economy of real value.
For instance, imagine a life in which, like the air, I need only be occupied with giving. What would life be if I were relieved of ever having to think about myself; about getting, having, possessing, protecting? This would require a kind of faith in an economy of real value, in which giving and receiving are part of the same process, and in which, through giving, I can trust that I will be provided with what I need. Such a faith could only be born of experience and a gradually growing trust in the goodness and justice of the natural order.
The experience with my guests showed me that I am far from this ideal. I saw in myself a belief that I need justification or compensation for giving. And it left me the idea of a task for myself: Can I care for another’s possessions as though they were my own? And perhaps an aim: Can I give by choice and without expectation of return, with trust that I will be provided with what I need?
