DISQUISITION ON THE DISPOSITION OF STRINGS & THINGS

Here's a question: when you give something to someone, is it ethical to hold on to an interest in it? Should it matter what that person does with it?

If you give something away, do you have the right to have an emotional reaction if the person does something with it you don't like?

If I buy you a new spring wardrobe, and next winter you toss it all out because it's all last season's stuff, am I entitled to be pissy? Can I reasonably expect to have a stake in whether you burn the wardrobe in a heap in the backyard, take it to Goodwill, wear it out, or pass it on to your sibling? It seems to me that it is more decent to give a thing and give up any interest in it. But, I might give a living thing, such as a puppy, to a person, and not give up my interest in and expectation that the puppy will be taken care of appropriately. The sentient "thinG" has value as a feeling creature, and I wouldn't want to squander that value. For the same reason, I wouldn't give something of value to a wastrel. But, what if the scoundrel wastrel doesn't have the same value system I do? Do I have the right to punish the wastrel, or can I only consider myself warned not to cast pearls before swine again?

If I receive a gift I don't like, am I entitled to toss it, give it to someone who will appreciate it, never wear it, or put it under the car engine to catch oil drips? Part of the value of the gifts I receive is the care taken in the selection, so I feel a bond to the person who gave me the gift that has to be honored by properly tending the gift.

That's why the corgi lamp Bernie gave me is such a problem. I have used the lamp, but it's too cute for me. I've hung onto it for years out of a sense of obligation to Bernie. After all, as she just explained to me she's my friend because we've been friends for more than 40 years, and that's too long to just "give it up for any reason," suggesting that ditching me must have crossed her mind. I would like to get over this corgi phase, but here is the lamp, and despite my embarrassment for putting a gift on my divestiture list, should anyone want to claim it, I will part with it, and endure Bernie's displeasure. It is kinda cute, though, isn't it?

When I was about 17, my mother got angry at my fast cousin Joel Ann, and returned an ironstone pitcher and bowl set Joel Ann had given her. It was done to hurt Joel Ann, and, I'm sure, to try to get Joel Ann out of her brain. Joel Ann must have carefully selected the set for my mother. It was meant to go with an old Eastlake set my mother had bought. Joel Ann probably couldn't afford it. It had a lot of symbolic exchange value, and it was probably all spent in the intense emotions of its being given and given back. Mother and Joel Ann made up, but the set never reappeared in our house, and I never saw it at Joel Ann's house, either.

My dad gave me a car once. I was about 40, and it was an old serial killer car, but a good car. I drove it for many years. It was the car I drove before the one I've got now, which is 13-years old. After I'd had it for a couple of years, Dad told me that he intended for me to trade it in or sell it or something. I thought he gave it to me to drive, and that's what I did with it. Trading a good car in would have been a problem for me because then I wouldn't want to trade a good car in for a bad one, and I don't know how to buy a car. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it turned out that I misused his gift.

I've made an effort in this Divestiture to offer things that are emotionally value-free. And most things are--take the bolo tie, for instance--the corgi lamp has strings. I can part with it, but the strings go with it, even though Bernie probably forgot she gave it to me.

But take it: it's a gift.