I recently got into baking sourdough, and I’m quite taken with it. But I have noticed a funny behavior that has emerged as a result of this labor of love. When I bake, I want to share my bread with anyone and everyone. Which isn’t funny, but the funny part is that I’ve found this impulse to be quite the contrast to the approach I sometimes find myself taking with things that I buy… Which is that I’m more likely to want to hoard that thing for myself.

Generally, I am quite the pragmatist, which is why I find this tendency so odd. Baking bread is so much more demanding than working to earn the $8 that can buy a beautifully made sourdough country loaf at the local bakery.

For starters, keeping a sourdough starter alive is a daily chore unto itself. Actually baking something with it sans instant yeast? A multi-day process that has 4-5 different touchpoints. So if I add up all the time and care and research and experimentation it takes for me to produce a mediocre loaf, I’d say it is the equivalent of multiple billable work hours — a few hundred dollars worth.

So why in the hell would I covet a bought loaf over one I make when it’s objectively a fraction as “valuable” to me, the pragmatist? Why am I almost jealous of anyone else who might possess this thing that I had no hand in producing? A thing that “costs” me mere minutes of work? Here’s what I’ve come up with…

What it feels like is that, when I buy a thing, before I’ve even acquired it, I (and the world) have assigned a material value to it — complete with a leading dollar sign. So this perceived “value” might as well be a target… I’m coaxed (conveniently, willingly, oh-so-cleverly) into thinking about how I need to squeeze each cent of utility out of it, lest any penny go wasted.

Conversely, why is it that when I spend hours and days slaving away to bake bread, I want to share it? Do I want recognition for my efforts? Of course I do. But… I am finding that, truthfully, that does not feel like the whole story. And there’s likely much more to this story still, but here’s the one other plot point I’ve come up with so far: the simple act of making something magically (but actually) shifts me wholly into the proverbial abundance mindset. A top-down, inside-out, full-body state of being. Completely (albeit temporarily) governing all that I think, do, and say. And from this state, I am much more likely to want to give. 

So this is a reminder to self to keep making things, even if only for the benefit of a short layover in the wonderful, mental state of abundance.