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| A gift or present is the transfer of money, goods,
etc., without the direct compensation that is involved in trade, although
possibly involving a social expectation of reciprocity, or a return
in the form of prestige or power. In many human societies, the act of
mutually exchanging gifts contributes to social cohesion. Economists
have elaborated the economics of gift-giving into the notion of a gift
economy. By extension the term gift can refer to anything that makes the other more happy or less sad, especially as a favor, including forgiveness, and kindness (even when the other is not kind). A gift may either be an ordinary object or an object created for the express purpose of gift exchange, such as the armbands and necklaces in the Trobriand Islands' Kula exchange. A gift can also be a special talent or ability that was not earned through the usual amount of long and difficult practice but instead comes easily to the recipient in a natural way. A person with such a gift is said to be "a natural" or "gifted" in that field of endeavor. A gift, in this sense, can be thought of as being given by God or by nature: a God-given or natural gift received by one at birth. For example, a fluent and entertaining speaker is said to have "the gift of gab". Ritual sacrifices can be seen as return gifts to a deity. Sacrifice can also be seen as a gift from a deity: Lewis Hyde remarks in The Gift that Christianity considers the Incarnation and subsequent death of Jesus to be a "gift" to humankind, and that the Jakata contains a tale of the Buddha in his incarnation as the Wise Hare giving the ultimate alms by offering himself up as a meal for Sakka. (Hyde, 1983, 58-60) click here for more |
Gifts 4 A
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