You're out on a hike and you spot a stranger.

He’s covered in sweat and visibly

exhausted. You hear him say under his breath if only I had thought to bring some
more water. You immediately think of the water bottle in your backpack. You
approach the man, and you hear yourself say, “I’ve got water you can have some
of mine.”

Why? Why do you go out of your way to do this? Why do you give to others when
there is nothing you expect in return, when there's absolutely no practical gain for
you? Why do you make the effort to be kind to strangers, giving change to beggars
helping an old lady cross the street? Why do you do it?

The simplest answer is that it feels good. But why? What could it possibly be that
makes you feel good when you take something of yours be time, money or some
other resource and you give it to someone else at no charge?

However, there is one highly influential theory of giving that deserves our
attention. It is a theory I found in Ernest Becker’s last book “Escape from Evil”. We
can draw from this short masterpiece. Some profound insights about why we
humans not only love but need to give. So, that's what we'll do in this article.

Credit to Pinterest
To understand giving we should take a step back a step way back to prehistoric
mankind. For a long time, anthropologists assumed that before the invention of
money, people used to barter. Bartering involves the exchange of one product or
service for another. For instance, if I'm a dairy farmer who needs a haircut and
you're a hairdresser who wants some milk, we can barter. We agree on how many
buckets of milk a haircut is worth. We shake hands and we make an exchange. In
the end of the day, I’ve got my hair cut. You're enjoying your cup of milk and we're
supposedly both happy.

However, during Europe’s colonial expansion when scholars first studied isolated
primitive societies, they were shocked to find that an altogether different system
of exchange existed there. Scholars discovered the main system of exchange to be
gift making. To pick up on our last example if you're a hairdresser who feels a strong
craving for milk, according to the system of gift making, you can just come up to
me and ask for some. I’m a dairy farmer and I have plenty of milk. I will certainly
not go bankrupt if I give you some and so I do but no charge. But I do this with the
unspoken agreement between us that when I feel like I need a haircut I can come
up to you and just ask for one and I’ll get it as a gift. On the pragmatic level, there
seems hardly to be a difference between bartering and gift making. In both cases I
end up with a new haircut and you with milk.

However, on the psychological level the two systems can hardly be further apart.
In the case of bartering, I feel I need something from you, and I begrudgingly
sacrifice something of my own so you may agree to give me what I need. In the case
of gift making, I am happy to give you anything you ask for. In fact, I may even go
out of my way to give you more than you need because this act maintains the social
agreement of gift making. By making a gift to you I know I am free to ask you for
anything I may need in the future, and I know you will not only give it to me, but
you will do so gladly. That’s because the more I give, the more you give, the more
everyone gets. Every member of the tribe produces more than he/she needs and
shares the surplus. We all share in abundance. We sacrifice what is best to the gods
and life in the community flourishes.

But there are much deeper reasons for why gift making arose. As the first system
of exchange, these are psychological reasons. As Becker points out, there are two
basic forces that define the human condition which pushes towards gift making.
 The first is heroism.
The second is guilt.

To get to the root causes of giving, we need to go even further back than the first
human societies. We must go back to the first humans, to the first beings on planet
earth who had that bone chilling thought which set them apart from all other

animals. That is the thought, “I am” .

Ernest Becker often remarks that Homo sapiens has the most tragic fate of all
animal species. Why? Because we are as he says, “part angels part food for
worms.”

We have the divine spark within us. That is the human mind, the most spectacular
thing in the entire universe. The mind is timeless allowing us to contemplate the
past and predict the future. It is also unlimited in space allowing us to study the
dynasty of particles and at the same time map the course of the stars. Our mind is
the birthplace of the arts, of culture, philosophy, music, religion. It possesses
reason and it can know not only how things are but also why they are the way they
are. The mind is a spring of all passions of deep reflection, of mystical union with
life. And yet this divine gift has come to us at a heavy price. Perhaps the heaviest
of prices. The mind allows us to understand the terrifying truth of our situation that
we are as Sheldon Solomon puts it, “Breathing eating defecating pieces of flesh”
that for all the unlimited vistas of our spirit, our bodies can barely make it past a
few decades before they begin to fall apart.

In short, we're the only animal that has been cursed at knowing it is going to die.
What an absolute nightmare, what an offense this is to the human spirit! How could
John Lennon the man who wrote Imagine, how could such a magnificent creation
of the universe end up shot in the street like a dog? If anything constitutes the
central problem of the human condition this is it. I know that I exist. But only at
the cost that I know I will not exist forever and for all the magnificence of my spirit
my body can be destroyed, my life can be snuffed out at any moment in the most
absurd ways.
Following in the footsteps of thinkers such as Otto Rank and Norman O Brown,
Becker concluded that knowledge of death is the root of the most powerful human
drive. In a dark twist of faith our denial of death gives birth to the most life-affirming
human impulse, the impulse to self-transcendence, to more life, to immortality and
the impulse to heroism.

What is a hero? A hero is literally a superman, a wonder woman, spiderman, etc.

Hero equals power, victory of good over evil, of life over death. A hero is
exceptional. A hero matters. But most of all a hero is remembered. And because
he/she is remembered, a hero lives on. His name is carved on monuments of stone.
His likeness appears on banknotes and food chain logos (E.g. Benjamin Franklin on
USD100 and KFC logo). His great deeds live on in the history books. We worship the
hero in songs, in movies, in bedtime stories we tell our children. If man is part
nature part culture, then the hero is man's escape from nature. A hero is pure
culture.

What does this mean? It means that a hero transcends the animal body to become
a symbol because as a symbol the hero can achieve in culture what no man can
achieve in nature. That is Immortality. So, no matter whether it's Mother Teresa,
Shakespeare, or Hercules, a hero is ultimately a religious symbol. He is one hundred
percent angel and zero percent food for worms. A hero never defecates.

Now, you might think, “But wait what does this have to do with giving and gift
making?” Well, think about what it means psychologically to make a gift. To give
something out at no charge means you're not dependent on it and you transcend
it. To return to our previous example, I will give you a few buckets of milk for free
because I am a dairy farmer. I have more milk than I know what to do with. Look at
me, I am a powerful accomplished man. I have milk in abundance, I therefore have
life in abundance. Clearly the more I am able to give, the more I must have. The
great man is who can make great gifts and if every gift is a step towards the hero.
It is also a step towards immortality. I give you milk but I gain a sense of immortality.
I feel I gain life.

Think about the greatest hero figure in western culture. The figure of Christ.
Christ’s story has had such an overpowering effect on the world that it has
ingrained itself so profoundly in our thinking that we cannot escape it even if we
wish to. We can safely argue that every hero story in the west produced in the last
2000 years has been purposefully or not based on Christ. And what makes Christ
the hero of heroes?

To become the hero of heroes, Christ had to make the gift of gifts. He had to give
away the most a man can possibly give, and he had to give it to the greatest possible
amount of people. Christ gave up his “very life” in an act of cosmic sacrifice for the
benefit of every human being that lives has lived and will ever live. Clearly, I’m now
not arguing for or against Christian doctrine whether you're a Christian, an atheist.
Or otherwise, we can all agree that as far as gift making is concerned Christ is the
absolute king of the game. By making this ultimate gift, Christ, this lord, this king of
kings became the ultimate hero. He became pure spirit, pure symbol pure
culture. We can argue Christ is much more alive today than he ever was in his
physical body. And we have no reason to doubt that he will continue to live on in
human culture for as long as human culture continues to live on.

After all, this is to show one simple fact. If you give, you're great. The more you
give, the greater you are. By giving, you become a hero and he who is a hero is
immortal. You can see now when you make a gift. It is not in fact true that you get
nothing in return. What is it to me to give away a few bucks of milk when in return
I get in on immortality? I get to see how powerful I am, how generous, how much I
transcend petty possessions. And if you remember me for my gifts, then all the
better. My name will get to live on. I will have extended my life beyond the physical
confines of my defecating body. I will become the brilliant memory of a great man,
a hero. Clearly, I do get something - I do get much in return for my giving.

We've made full circle and returned to our initial question of why we give. But
Becker says there is one more reason together with heroism that compels us to
make gifts. This second reason appears to be the exact opposite of our need to be
heroes, to transcend death by making a dent in the universe. This second reason is
Guilt.

Guilt is a word we don't like a lot. In modern culture, our global ideologies tell us to
be proud of who we are, proud of our bodies, proud of our sexuality, our skin color
and our ethnicity. That is of course unless you're a straight white man but let's not
go there for now. My point is all of this is okay, and it has nothing to do with what
Becker meant by guilt. We saw how homo sapiens is part animal part
divine/angel. If heroism is man's reaction against his animal side, guilt is his
compensation for the divine spark within him.

Have you ever had that feeling when something really really good happens to you
that it might actually be too good or how about that widespread custom to knock
on wood when something good happens, so you keep bad luck away? Why do you
think people do it all around the world? For instance, in Bulgaria, there's a custom
in rural areas. A long-awaited child is born, and his/her parents give a name with a
negative connotation on purpose. Sometimes the name might mean ugly or sick or
crippled. What could possibly be the reason for this? And then there's the common
Jewish expression “Kein ayin hara” which you say every time after you compliment
somebody. The phrase translates as no evil I, meaning may no evil notice this man
lest it take his fortune away. The common root of all these things is one and the
same. It is the feeling that says what I have is too good. I don't deserve it and yet I
don't want to lose it. It is the feeling of guilt.

All these examples of guilt are so to speak secondary. Baker points out that the
primary form of guilt is existential guilt. It is the guilt man feels for the very fact he
is alive.

“Here I am”, says man, “the sun gives me light and warmth, the earth gives me
food, the gods have given me a spirit to wander the heavens and a body to wander
the earth. I have received all these things though I am a breeding eating defecating
piece of flesh.” If man is the only animal who can think “I am”, he is also the only
animal who can feel guilt for being guilt and shame for sticking out too much in
nature. The way he does for standing at the top of the food chain. Becker writes,
“is the origin of all religious sacrifice and ritual, one feels guilty before the gods and
wishes to give back to them to repay a portion of his debt.”

We often think of primitive societies as living in complete harmony with nature

never taking more than they can use, but this is not true. In primitive societies, it is
the rule that the tribe produces more food, hunts more animals, produces more
valuables than it needs. And then, burns them a sacrifice to the gods and yes you
guessed WHY? Guilt and the desire to keep the cycle of life flowing. The gods give
to us. We give back and the sun gets to rise another day. On the social level, this
sacrificial impulse translates as the act of giving. To use Freudian language, you feel
you have been mothered by the sun, the earth, the gods. The least you can do to
reduce your guilt is to become a mother to your neighbor. So, you make gifts.

I give you milk not only because I need to stand out as a generous hero. I also have
the exact opposite need. I need to share my guilt with you. My guilt for standing
out far too much, my guilt for being an animal that can think, my guilt for having
lunch while children around the world starve to death, my guilt for being alive when
Lennon was shot like a dog in the street.

Now we can see how profoundly powerful active gift making is on the psychological
level. On the one hand man needs to gain - gain a feeling of importance of heroism,
of immortality. On the other, man needs to lose - to lose his existential guilt, or he
would collapse under the weight of his own existence. Gift making brilliantly
satisfies both these needs. In simple words when I give to you, deep down I feel I
gain life and lose guilt. It is a deal heart to beat. No wonder gift making came so
naturally to primitive man.

So, let's go back to the beginning. You're out on a hike and you spot a stranger who
looks like he could use a sip of water. You offer him some of yours. Why do you do
it? Well, because you're a helper, a friend, and a little bit of a savior even.

You give because you have the strength to the will, to the life force too, because
you rise above that which you give and above him who you give to. You become
even in just for a moment a hero and he who is close to the hero is not far from
eternal life. But there's something else too. You know what it is to lack, what it is
to thirst and yet here you are feeling okay while this stranger suffers in front of your
eyes. Of course, you help him out. You need to make it up to life, make it up for the
injustice that you're well in a world where it is the norm to be unwell. So, you give.
You watch the stranger gulp down those few sips of water and it feels good. “Look
I’m important to this man”, a voice inside you says. “Look there's some use to my
existence.” After all another voice adds and suddenly in the act of giving you receive
more than you could have asked for. You feel the significance of your life and your
conscience rests easy. Perhaps for the first time in a long time. Yes, it sure does feel
good.
Giving challenges the "me first" mentality and opens our hearts to the true meaning
of happiness. It's not found in accumulating possessions, but in the act of selflessly
sharing our blessings with others.

So, remember Rumi’s words – “What you seek is seeking you.” When we love,
kind or give to others, that love also comes back to you, to me, and to everyone.