Potlatch Ontology

Only what you’re willing to give away reveals itself as worth selling. Though at a given moment your need to sell may be acute, even absolute, it is the strength of your desire to escape the calculus of gain that alone can redeem the artifact. That is the kiss from the maker’s lips that can breathe life into an otherwise soulless vessel. Not a corpse—which once gave freely of its energies—but something less. A doll, a mannequin, a simulacrum. However beautiful and malleable to the purchaser’s intent, the unwilled given can never be more than an effigy of value.

I sold it. Gladly. But if I hadn’t—hadn’t had to—I would have given it away. It needed to reach others.
          To this point the exchange is still tolerable.