freecycling

On the way from my new apartment to campus, I always pass what looks to be a free newspaper stand--you know, the kind where you lift the plastic lid out toward you and there's a stack of something. Except the stand isn't for complimentary newspapers, it's for complimentary books. It's there for anybody to leave and take books. I've been checking it every day. Usually there's either nothing or nothing very exciting. Yesterday there was a informational brochure on being black and getting a job.

But this morning the thing was full of economics books. I grabbed one on South Korea for T., shoved it in my bag, and moved on.

About a block later, I started wondering--what if that book was for somebody else? What if it's not as random as it looks, and instead it serves a function of deliberate delivery from one person to another? Was I thieving?

It's strange that the thought even crossed my mind, and stranger that it stuck with me and I started to feel like I was carting around stolen goods. Who would paint "Free Books" on a container meant for specified people? Why did I feel so implicated?

My theory is that my institutionalized mind was subconsciously anxious over the lack of capitalism involved with my completely legal book-snatching. The idea that I could take something from a willing stranger in the name of community is that alien.

U. confirmed tonight over peanut butter and tea that it is perfectly acceptable to take things from the box. You can take and not feel guilty, give and not feel deserving. It's all non-expectant, unknown relationships between people.

Tomorrow I'm going to leave a book I got free from the Reg when it was dumping its collection a year or two ago--"Men and Aggression." I think I'll start freecycling a lot more from now on.