Through the generations we’ve learned how to best sort the goods:
milk and eggs dimly tucked behind rows of individually packaged sugar.
As shelved bread depreciates according to a function of its preservatives
just in time for its tag to grow larger and turn yellow: “Deal of the Day”.
Here an organic label can be purchased to turn higher profit.
It’s easy to forget the spell of scarcity cast by our kings.

The guide to being a healthy consumer would tell us to pay
the extra $3.50 for the eggs laid by chickens that walked around
5 square feet instead of 2.
Or better: buy the newest shelf-stable amalgymation of beans and spices
to scramble in your pan over toast

Free means valueless: that an item used to be worth something to someone
But a gift is invaluable. It has no price.
A sweater made by your grandmother warms differently than
plastics formed by children overseas, shipped, and purchased.
I can’t pretend to have answers to all our problems, but it seems to me that
community, Neighboring, sharing, gifting, and growing
are the ways to show that we don’t need to be isolate competitors.
sharing is the ultimate undermine of currency and scarcity.