The Concept of Value

16th May 2019

I feel like a great star in a movie, Picture me.

Am in a train sited, weighing different ideas, looking all pensive and nostalgic, am so focused am squint-eyed.

Everyone else is glued to their phones and laptops, eating or blank staring.

Am writing this right now, the adrenaline rush, the discernment of certain truths I hope to be universally applicable, the going back and forth in my mind.

Well, this is as fictional as it is real, it's my world and it has value to me.

Maybe it's the art, the mystery or the stream of consciousness or

the therapy or escape I find in it, it's a priceless gift.

In the pursuit of self, transcendence is a spiritual orgasm.

This is what I value above all and I believe you knowingly or unknowingly value it as much as I do, maybe more or less.

Value is a word with many meanings, I'll dissect it into two parts then consolidate them.

1.Value is the regard, importance or worthiness that something or someone is held with. 

Examples:

Good sleep is valuable. 

Insight is invaluable.

Diamond has value.

2. Value is an abstract possession either inherent or developed as part of character.

Examples: Courage, Faith, Understanding, Peace, Joy, Conscience, Resilience, Focus, Righteousness

As quoted in The Misconception of Value

"Value is an inside-out condition not an outside-in one,

We suffer because we value the material over the abstract"

Thus as per the dissection of value in the text before the quote...The solution to suffering is valuing values.

Value is the measure of greatness.

A man/thing is as valuable as the effectiveness of the solutions he/it provides.

That's how money gets its value.

In the pursuit of self, we have neglected our spiritual nature for our bodily desires.

We have given in to greed, selfishness, Godlessness, immorality and vices that punish us for the same pleasures we seek.

We have pursued;

Pleasure more than restraint,

Comfort more than growth,

Luxury more than peace,

Objects more than character.

We have began to live from the outside in and thus devalued ourselves into conformity.

In an era where the world defines us.

We have confused;

Popularity with content,

Beauty with substance,

Possessions with joy.

We have created our own unhappiness and life being life, we are found even further unstable every time a storm comes.

"Life is suffering"

Buddha

This is life, suffering never ends.

In the end; values are epitaphed, not networth.

We shall decay, but what we pass on shall remain.