A Gift (n.) is a symbol, and symbol means pact: hence the objects of ritual exchange — pots made to stay empty, shields too heavy to carry, lances stuck in the ground — are meant to be useless.
A Gift (n.) of oneself — 'I give myself to you', the patient says — is changed, oh mystery, into a gift of shit.
A Gift (n.) always has an ineliminable narcissistic dimension, as long as the giver stands in the register of the ego.
Gift (n.) begins as the present offered in anxiety — the child's feces yielded to the Other's desire.
A Gift (n.) neutralizes its own content to declare itself a gift: what matters is not the thing given but the link established when the other accepts it — as when sea swallows pass a fish from beak to beak.