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I never saw a wild thing

Sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead

From a bough

Without ever having felt sorry for itself.

— D. H. Lawrence

Even though this page has a big, impressive<br>title, it is about a simple idea which I hope I<br>can convey in a few words. Here are the main<br>points:

Economic principles lie behind many more human<br>activities than most of us realize. We are almost<br>constantly exchanging something for something<br>else.

Many economic transactions don't involve money.<br>In traditional societies, and sometimes even this<br>one, people trade using favors, influence, even<br>pure ideas, instead of money.

Sometimes money is not the best way to convey<br>value.

And sometimes money is so completely<br>inappropriate that it destroys the transaction

CareWare is one of those transactions.

CareWare

doesn't involve money, but it is a<br>transaction nevertheless. Something is delivered,<br>something is received. Adam Smith's invisible<br>economic hand moves through the CareWare economy<br>just like everywhere else. I can't ask for<br>something more than I am giving, but I can ask<br>for an appropriate exchange.

In CareWare,

the "buyer" gets something of<br>value in exchange for something the "seller"<br>wants. And what does the seller want? The general answer<br>is "Anything except money," but I prefer the<br>really remarkable transactions, which you recognize<br>instinctively when you see them.

Here is an example — here is a hypothetical<br>transaction between myself and you. I have a program<br>called "Arachnophilia" which is a rather nice<br>Web page editor and workshop, but I don't want your money<br>in exchange, I want something else. So I say "This<br>is what I am offering, and here is what I want in<br>return." Simple, right? I have been doing this for a<br>little while now, and the responses have been very<br>interesting. Many people think I have religious beliefs<br>— I don't, at least not religious beliefs recognizable<br>by a person of normal intellectual gifts. Others try to<br>push the transaction in a more traditional direction for<br>one reason or another — I recently received this<br>message:

Careware,eh? A small price to pay for such a<br>great software package. My pen quivers over my<br>checkbook in case you change your mind.

This response could<br>arise from any number of causes, and bartering about the

medium

as well as the

size

of the payment is a normal<br>part of economic transactions, so maybe I am picking on<br>this particular correspondent a little. But the funny<br>part is

CareWare is by no means a small price to pay

For example, here is a payment I will accept for a<br>copy of Arachnophilia --

To own Arachnophilia, I ask that you stop whining<br>about how hard your life is, at least for a while. When<br>Americans whine, nearly everybody else in the world<br>laughs. We have so much, and yet we manage to:

Overlook great examples of beauty around us,

Miss our most important opportunities,

Manage to make ourselves miserable by<br>expecting something even better to come along.

Every time we whine about how tough we have it, apart<br>from the fact that we look ridiculous, we make it harder<br>for people around us to appreciate how much we have. We<br>encourage people to overlook the things we do have, the<br>gifts of man and nature. We provide a context to dismiss<br>everything as not good enough, to be miserable in the<br>midst of plenty.

Don't get the wrong impression — many things are<br>unjust, things that should be struggled against until<br>they are made right. This page is for people who<br>can't find even one thing to take joy in, to appreciate.<br>These people not only make themselves miserable, but they<br>infect others with the attitude that the world should<br>right itself, by itself, before they will take simple<br>pleasure in anything.

So here is my deal: stop whining for an hour, a day, a<br>week, your choice, and you will have earned your copy of<br>Arachnophilia. Say encouraging words to young people,<br>make them feel welcome on the planet Earth (many do not).<br>Show by example that we don't need all we have in order<br>to be happy and productive.

Paul Lutus, Port Hadlock, Washington

Also see<br>Interview With an Extraterrestrial<br>on this topic.

Important Note:

if you don't like this idea, just ignore it

— you can have Arachnophilia anyway. That's one way to distinguish the world<br>of ideas from<br>the rest of human history: you can disregard an idea and no one knocks on your<br>door at<br>midnight.

Please feel free to make a link to<br>this page — example: CareWare.

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