A Story of Gifts for You

They say this world is made of gifts. It is a perspective that becomes invisible when you are deeply immersed in capital markets.

Broadly speaking, a "gift" is a form of value exchange other than exchanging money for goods in a market.

For example, within a family, exchanges that do not involve money, such as "you did this for me" or "I did that for you," are constantly taking place.

It is not a world with price tags like the capital market.

It is a world with significant fluctuations based on subjectivity and emotion, and at times, it carries premiums that could never appear in the capital market (such as mementos that money cannot buy or moving events that are irreplaceable).

Among gifts, those that significantly drive the stories of the world are the gifts between parents and children.

In Yuta Chika's theory of gifts in "The World is Made of Gifts," the perspective that what is directed toward children is "less about unconditional love and more about past indebtedness (a sense of duty)" was very interesting.

In the past, we were given love by our parents. We were given it even though there was no inherent reason to be given it. That becomes an emotional debt. It becomes an indebtedness.

Humans feel uncomfortable if they do not repay their debts.

For example, the movie "Pay It Forward" is a story about a person who receives kindness from a total stranger and then repeats the act by passing it on to someone else; indeed, I think a "sense of duty" was evident in the expressions of those who were paying it forward. And after they finished paying it forward, there was an expression of "relief."

Returning to the subject of parents and children, because the debt of having been given things by one's parents remains on one's mind, one repays it to one's own children. Those children repeat the same thing. It continues on in an unbroken chain.

I see. Since I intend to live and die as a social human being, I must follow the protocols of humanity and pass on what I must to my own children.

≪Things I give to you≫

• I will not let you end up in a situation where you are troubled by money.

• When you are sick, I will prioritize everything else and take you to the hospital.

• I will buy you many books.

• Even if you have a difficult personality, I will not abandon you.

• I will not ask for anything in return.

• I will pay for everything.

• I will not force customs upon you.

• I will support all of your decisions.

• I will also live independently.