Chapter 20: On Gratitude Trade

Where we meet a gratitude dealer and learn that there is no such thing as "strawberry gratitude".

I still don't know what this gratitude thing is. It seems that it is bound to the person it gives - gratitude received from A can't be used with B - and it seems that it is not quantifiable. (The expression "a thousand thanks" seems to be nothing more than an idiom.)

But there is one thing that contradicts the "bound and unquantifiable" hypothesis: I saw a gratitude dealer. That's right. In the center of the city, sitting on the sidewalk, selling gratitude against cash. Most human dealers have their own "shops", but this one didn't - he couldn't even affort decent cloth. It seems that gratitude dealers are supposed to be poor, don't ask me why. He also had a dog. But it's clearly a dealer, his job is quite similar to the job of an ice-cream seller: People give him money, and the more they give the more merchandise they get. Only that's not ice-cream but gratitude. Which comes, by the way, not in different flavours, so the client's can't choose, say, some strawberry and some vanilla gratitude.

Anyway, this gratitude trader puzzles me: How can you sell something that's not quantifiable? Whatever is sold has a price per quantity, whether it's a number, a weight, a volume, time or whatever. Secondly, when I observed the buyers' thoughts, most clients had no intention to see the dealer again. So, if the gratitude they bought is bound to the dealer, what do they do with it?

As a sidenote, an interesting difference with other dealers was that the buyers didn't buy to satisfy their Unconsciousness Thingy, but their Annoying Niggler. Normally it's the Thingy that makes people buy something (except with a post-card seller on a public place who sold overprized post-cards for handicapped orphelin seal babies or something)

Later the day I paid attention to other people sitting on the street and i discovered, in fact, quite a number of other gratitude dealers. This seems to be a rather popular expression - although it seems to be neither reputable nor profitable. Many of the sellers had dogs - don't ask me why. I even saw saleswomen of a gratitude selling company, women with headscarfs, many of them with children. I don't know whether this is a proper company, but according to their thoughts they seemed to be somewhat organized.

Could anybody explain me this gratitude dealing business?

Chapter 17: On Favours

Where we learn that some humans think they receive gifts from Mr. Nobody.

Social interaction - what a complicated thing. I'm far from being able to describe how social interaction works, but "favours" seem to play a central role in society.

What's a favour? Well, a favour is an action (or, more generally, decision) made by a human A, which satisfies two conditions:

1. It has a certain cost for A (in terms of time, effort, money, whatever)
2. It brings a certain benefit for another human B.

Why would a being possibly do something he takes no direct benefit from? Well, I observed some possible reasons. The first two exist also in hell, the others were up to now unknown to me:

Favour exchange
The simplest of all variants. A does a favour to B, and B does a favour to A.


Money
A variant of the former: A does a favour to B, and b gives money to A, which can be exchanged against favours with anybody else.

Biology
Humans sometimes do favours to others because their "unconsciousness thingy" wants it. This usually serves preservation of the human's DNA. A typical example is raising and nourishing children:

A variant are favours done as part of the humans' mating rituals:


Religious ethics
Very popular among religious people. The idea is the following: A does a favour to B, and G does a favour to A in the afterlife, where G is any real or imaginative benevolent supernatural power (usually the Enemy).


Atheist ethics
The same as religious ethics, but without G.


Gratitude
This one is one of the most popular - and for me, the most difficult to understand. It seems to involve some imaginary currency called "gratitude": A does a favour to B, and B gives "gratitude" to A.

I've no idea how this system works, whether or not gratitude from B can be given to another person C (like money), whether or not it is quantifiable etc. I think I have heared the expression "Mille Merci !" (1000 Thanks), but often the precise amount of gratitude is not specified.

I will have to do some research to understand this social mecanism.