## Metadata - Author: [[Charles Eisenstein]] - Full Title: Sacred Economics - Category: #books ## Highlights - Within every institution of our civilization, no matter how ugly or corrupt, there is the germ of something beautiful: the same note at a higher octave. Money is no exception. Its original purpose is simply to connect human gifts with human needs, so that we might all live in greater abundance. How instead money has come to generate scarcity rather than abundance, separation rather than connection, is one of the threads of this book. ([Location 246](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004ZZNNKU&location=246)) - In the beginning was the Gift. We are born helpless infants, creatures of pure need with little resource to give, yet we are fed, we are protected, we are clothed and held and soothed, without having done anything to deserve it, without offering anything in exchange. This experience, common to everyone who has made it past childhood, informs some of our deepest spiritual intuitions. Our lives are given us; therefore, our default state is gratitude. It is the truth of our existence. ([Location 305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004ZZNNKU&location=305)) - Whereas money today embodies the principle, “More for me is less for you,” in a gift economy, more for you is also more for me because those who have give to those who need. ([Location 397](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004ZZNNKU&location=397))