Hi Sarah, have not heard of Heraclitus and will resist looking him/her up on the net until until I get a recommendation from you. Trying to cure myself of scanning the net for “information” unattached to people I know. There’s a marketing scheme over here for lobster were the waiter brings a selection of lobsters to your table and you can scan its little attached chip to find out the name and biography of the fisher-person who captured the poor thing. There’s something immediate and human about this that could be a Rhizo14 topic:-)

Gifting has come up in training apprentices where the obligation to the next generation of trades people is clouded by their being a constant pain in the ass. Like being a parent, it’s an adaptation to be sure something that can’t not be
done gets done with as little bruising as possible. There’s something about gifts that the receiver validates by use that tempers our natural habit of thinking of self-only. “Shop Class as Soulcraft” by Matthew B. Crawford talks about this connection through shared work. I bet Jordan would like the book too.

The idea of the gap brought up by Rebecca resonates with me too. Where I used to work conversations would never start. Even if people were brave enough to be humans to each other there’s a constant silence over the place. People are fired for questioning anything and rat on each other like it was a contest to biggest asshole. That said, it’s kind of dangerously interesting:-)