We’re familiar with terms like Scientific Thinking and Critical Thinking. “Gift Thinking” is a concept Robin Wall Kimmerer coins and explores in The Serviceberry. With this new term, she challenges us to consider a new way thinking.
Interestingly, in her previous book Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer coined another term that’s the opposite of “Gift Thinking,” which is “Windigo Thinking.” This is a topic that’s explored deeply in the essays “Windigo Footprints” and “Defeating Windigo” in Braiding Sweetgrass, if you’d like to read further.
You will need 6 tabs total to annotate “Gift Thinking.”
Note: one tab is for your tab key.
TAB p 22
“This is the power of gift thinking.”
TAB p 12
“The relationships nurtured by gift thinking diminish our sense of scarcity and want.”
TAB p 24
“Gift thinking means that in gratitude for the drink, I’ll clean the leaves from the bottom of the pool and take care not to muddy the edges.”
TAB p 104
“Students on my walks who hold themselves back, flash their skepticism of gift thinkingwith barely concealed eye rolls.”
TAB p 81
Tab the opposite of “gift thinking” too, which is “windigo thinking.”
“Windigo thinking jeopardizes the survival of the community by incentivizing individual accumulation far beyond the satisfaction of “enoughness.””
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