Spending and Offering

From the Online Etymology Dictionary: PIE root *spend—“to make an offering, perform a rite”
(PIE stands for Proto Indo-European)

When we choose to purchase an object, whether it’s a necessity such as food, or a luxury such as a piece of jewelry, we are engaging in the ritual of commerce. While shopping seems to be an ordinary activity and not remarkable in any way, it is as much of a formalized ritual as any activity in a place of worship. There are certain rules: no eating the food before you pay; no putting on the clothes until you have left the store and removed the tags; no taking things from someone else’s shopping cart. There are expectations of specific behaviors: you will wait patiently in line to make your purchase at a store, or you will wade through the online checkout process and provide a great deal of information for an online purchase; you will make payment in specified forms of financial exchange; you will show your receipt at the exit to prove that you have paid for the items. These parameters and requirements are so familiar, so much a part of our ordinary day, we are not aware of the formalities because they are second nature.

Next time you are shopping, see if you can step back from the experience and observe it as you would notice the details of a ritual you were attending for the first time. What assumptions underlie the shopping environment? What behaviors are expected from each participant, and what might be the psychological and/or social basis for these behaviors? What happens if someone does not behave as expected? What are the consequences, and how are they enforced? Are they enforced uniformly, or randomly?

Also, think about what you are offering as your part in the ritual. If you are paying with money you have worked for, the thing you are buying has a very real cost aside from the monetary price—in terms of your time. If your net pay is $10 per hour (for example, you are paid $15 per hour, but after taxes and costs of working—commute, lunch, work clothes, other employment-related expenses—your real wages are lower than your paystub shows), and you want an item that is priced at $30, you are offering three hours of your life in exchange for that item. Suddenly, even if $30 seems cheap in terms of cash, it is quite expensive in terms of your time—almost half of one work day. And suddenly, the item might not seem quite so desirable, or it may become irresistible.

When we make an offering to our gods, we do so with items we have purchased, using money we have obtained by selling our time. Additionally, we give the time it takes to make the offering, just as we would give time to anyone we love. Our offering is not just the object we are offering, but our time, and a piece of our self, and that is the real gift.

Spending – Image from iExpats.com