Category: Economy & Values

How much of life has now been taken apart and put back together in a different format? Almost as if, these last few decades or so, people have simply been analysing and breaking down life’s component parts to rearrange them all in new ways. As if modern life “is” this act of deconstruction as we reimagine what life could be and how things could work differently.

Maybe that’s part of what technology’s given us: the power to reconstruct society. This sense in which we “can” now gather enough data to fairly confidently reconfigure our lives in dramatically altered ways – we have enough insight into “how things are” to design “how they could be” and make sure almost all life’s loose ends get tied up in these neatly designed new systems.

Isn’t it fascinating, that we’re living in a time where a relatively small group of people can develop their vision and put it in place all around and throughout our lives? That “how things have always been done” – the slowly developed, long-held traditions of every corner of the globe – could so easily come up against this strong surge of disruption that can sweep away centuries or millennia of human development. (Notes One)

And disruption seems great in that it’s hard to imagine how the long-established “grip” of tradition could ever have been shaken loose without it (Notes Two), but how much “better” are the solutions being put in their place? How much more harmonious, inclusive or sustainable are the ideas these small groups have for our lives? How accountable or transparent are those people and their visions for our future?

Sometimes it just seems a lot is being trimmed out and cast aside during this reinvention process – a lot of things we might’ve hoped to keep, if given the choice. I mean, might it not turn out that important elements of “our lives” were deemed irrelevant by those at the helm of this “new world” being ushered in around us? That seemingly insignificant, inconvenient values, principles or activities might casually be omitted.

Things like community; empathy; genuine human connection; meaning; honesty; privacy; compassion; freedom; standards; respect; security; infrastructure; the ability to communicate; truthful relationships with reality; or understanding our value in the flow of time. Not to say modern technology’s solely responsible for any such difficulties we might be having, but it doesn’t always seem to be helping (Notes Three).

It just seems that, in this grand project of reimagining “life”, a lot of things that we might take for granted and/or truly rely upon as we attempt to live sustainably, harmoniously and responsibly alongside others don’t necessarily seem to be high priorities in the eyes of those redesigning how our lives are going to be.

If there’s not comprehensive, inclusive wisdom behind how we’re living, how can we hope the systems set in motion around us will lead to a place where we can happily call ourselves human and feel comfortable with how we’re treating all that’s surrounding us?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The self within society
Note 1: The picture data paints of us
Note 1: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 1: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 1: Everything culture used to be
Note 2: How quickly things can change
Note 2: Tools
Note 2: Ideas that tie things together
Note 2: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 2: Where’s the reset button & can we press it?
Note 3: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 3: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 3: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 3: Situations which ask us to trust
Note 3: Value and meaning in our lives

Is it true that the future we’re walking into is largely in the hands of the market? As if almost every area of our lives has now been entrusted to the tender or forceful grasp of those forces – all subject to the push or pull of demand, availability, and the sense of what people can be persuaded, coerced or tempted into buying. Everything having been placed in the lap of this rather specific form of democratic choice.

And, beyond just the procurance of essential goods and services, aren’t our beliefs and ideas treated similarly? As if “all of life” has been carved up, rethought in terms of market share, and packaged to appeal to certain segments of society. Cultural consumption, appearance and attitudes now separating us into tribes as we express ourselves – or, create our identity – from the options available. (Notes One)

Aren’t there other ways to be thinking about life? Not just in terms of economic power and where it places us with regard to social identity or cultural worth, but – somehow – separating the idea of personal value from any sort of financial analysis (Notes Two). Almost as if “to be human” isn’t simply a question of how much money we’re born into or are likely in the position to make.

Haven’t we, however, placed everything in the market’s hands? Life, increasingly, coming down to this rational assessment of what we can afford and whether we think something’s worthwhile investing in for “where it will get us” in terms of status or opportunity. As if the purpose of life is the accumulation of money; our personal worth so closely tangled up with it.

Isn’t it interesting that we’ve placed “ideas” and “beliefs” in such hands? As if “how we use our minds” is now subject to whatever notions we buy into from all that’s convincingly, persistently or strategically placed before us – all these carrots and sticks, subtle inducements, or promises of social acceptance if we’ll concede to walk certain paths with the precious footsteps of our thinking.

It seems such a powerful thing: for human belief to be determined by market offerings or compelling arguments (Notes Three). Aren’t our minds where we make our choices and maintain our understanding of life? The place we weigh up our options; test them against our grasp of reality’s delicate balances; and decide which things we want to support, sustain and bring into existence. Isn’t it where “our” power lies? (Notes Four)

Yet it’s so often seeming pulled down to the level of calculation: ideas surreptitiously hidden within the subtext of media, culture or advertising to shift our thinking, undermine our worth, lead us step-by-step onto paths that may not be in our best interests. Isn’t thought a slippery slope? One move, combined with other, potentially trapping us in a tangle of contradictory premises we can’t find our way between.

If the future’s being determined by the quality of choices we’re able to make in these marketplaces, where we’re headed must be questionable.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Markets, and what they might mean
Note 1: Economics & the realm of culture
Note 1: The business of spiritual ideas
Note 1: Making ends meet
Note 2: Worthless, or priceless?
Note 2: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 2: Society that doesn’t deal with the soul
Note 3: Who gets to define us
Note 3: The relationship between statistics & reality
Note 3: How quickly things can change
Note 3: Attention as a resource
Note 4: What we create by our presence
Note 4: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 4: Freedom, responsibility & choice

With all of this, there’s always the question of Having confidence in complex systems.

How many of the holes we’re chasing to fill in life aren’t really there? These manufactured lacks or shortcomings we’ve been compelled to feel the need to plaster over – never feeling we’re quite “enough” without the next thing. Striving after such goals may be what modern economy is built around, but is it any kind of foundation for living within a finite landscape?

Isn’t it that economic activity generally goes hand in hand with marketing? All those intent on convincing us we need whatever it is they’ve been tasked to sell; making us believe our lives are somehow incomplete or far short of what they could’ve been without it. All these promises around how easy, admirable and satisfying our existence will become. Filling us in on all these problems we never knew we had. (Notes One)

Surely, it’s a chase we’ll never win? There’s always going to be more: the next development; the next sign of change on our path through this human condition; the next desire fluttering up as we seek to feel better about ourselves. As if “all this” is built around telling us what we’re missing; this constant effort at undermining any self-worth or peace we might have.

Almost as if the human psyche is an endless source of demand; easily swayed by ideas of not fitting in, standing out or living up to our potential. Is it because we’ve built society on competition? Setting us all against each other for a limited amount of praise or wealth. Making everyone feel that if we don’t keep up, we’ll fall behind and drop out.

As if life’s a treadmill we can’t step off or we’ll lose our place in this race. As if our acceptance and belonging is tied to this pursuit of things and the status they’ll give us in the eyes of others – social identity and worth, somehow, having been tangled up in all we can buy. As if the value of any human life can take on the form of a financial calculation (Notes Two).

Isn’t it natural that we want to belong? To be accepted, recognised, heard, understood, loved by others of our kind? Don’t we want to matter to people? To feel ourselves reflected considerately in their eyes and words. To feel valued within our community, as much for our contributions as for our very presence. As if the frame of our life is held respectfully alongside all others. (Notes Three)

And, while we’re chipping away at personal security with all these suggested shortcomings, how many other problems are we serving to set in motion? We might never actually be able to set straight all the things we’re damaging or destroying in the world around us – all the communities, ecosystems, resources and livelihoods being disrupted for relatively short-term gain.

Unravelling the delicate, elusive line between all we really need in life and all that’s grown up around those requirements seems important, if we’re not to upset the balance our lives truly depend upon.

Notes and References:

“Happiness” by Steve Cutts, November 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk

Note 1: Markets, and what they might mean
Note 1: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 1: Making ends meet
Note 2: Mathematics of life
Note 2: Worthless, or priceless?
Note 2: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 3: What does community mean?
Note 3: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 3: This thing called love

An interesting representation of all this can also be found in Steve Cutts’ animation “Happiness”.

If everything in life now exists as a marketplace – whether it’s ideas, perspectives, products, lifestyles or paths – what does that mean? Are all our options now simply something to compare, weigh up and piece together into the kind of person we want to be? As if “life” is now choices and our role is to freely decide, between them all, which things matter most to us.

Sometimes it seems as if the world’s been taken apart and put back together upside down – as if our values and reasons for living are, somehow, inverted. Isn’t there a circularity between our needs and motivations? Those needs, particularly the psychological ones, seeming almost limitless, perhaps we’ll be peddling forever, churning through these finite resources, in the hope of somehow feeling satisfied and worthwhile. (Notes One)

If markets are “there” to meet our needs, yet, to justify and expand their own existence, they begin manufacturing shortages we never knew we had, might we not be chasing those imaginary targets forever? Never quite reaching the goalposts, as they inevitably inch further and further down the path in front of us. Led, like the Pied Piper, into some sort of prison of our own making.

Because, what are we really seeking? How much of the “choice” laid before us is truly necessary, or are we dealing here with the relative merits of various forms of luxury? It just seems there’s always something else – some new item, development, standard we should be chasing. As if, in our desire to belong, fit in or be admired by our peers, we’ll forever be seeking the next thing in an endless race to nowhere.

Isn’t it all rather meaningless? As if we’re just churning through “things”, saying they give our lives meaning, when all we’re actually doing is exchanging our time for money, and money for things. Are we really just trading in the hours of our existence? Maybe I’m reading it wrong.

Of course, there’s meaning behind many things: behind expressing who we are and showing we care enough to maintain our appearance; behind taking part in the long human conversation of forms, colours, trends and the significance assigned to them; behind sharing experiences, be they meals or events, and discussing afterwards what we made of them (Notes Two). Life perhaps “is” all these activities we partake in.

Maybe, then, it’s more a question of where our focus is? Whether we’re focussed on “the thing”, “what we’re told it means” or “what it really means.” If we’re believing things will give us something they never can – worth, acceptance, value, purpose, meaning – we may be engaged in a fruitless pursuit. If we know our worth and understand the true cost of what we’re doing, maybe there’s no problem. (Notes Three)

As long as we’re not looking for something markets can never give – as long as we know the true value of everything involved – maybe it’s true they’re an incredible opportunity to meet all our needs and solve all our problems.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The value we’re giving to things
Note 1: Goods & the wisdom in scarcity
Note 1: The beauty in home economics
Note 1: Cycles of mind & matter
Note 1: What’s not essential
Note 2: Involvement in modern culture
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 3: Ethics, money & social creativity
Note 3: Points of sale as powerful moments
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: What we create by our presence

How much value are we giving to the things we have in life? Sometimes, it really seems that belongings have come to define us – how others see us and we see ourselves. As if life were simply this accumulation of choices that we’ve made about the kind of person we are, the way we wish to be seen, and what it all says about us.

We very much seem to be told, these days, that surrounding ourselves with things that suit our personality and pulling them together to express our own unique style “is” what it is to be human (Notes One). And, that “reading” others using that code is the way to understand where they stand and how much you have in common. Things, effectively, stepping in to tell the world who we all are as people.

It’s the kind of thinking that must serve business pretty well, while casting us all as perpetual consumers in pursuit of the next development. If “this” is where identity, acceptance and belonging happen, the idea of not playing the game perhaps seems risky; as if you might disappear or be judged poorly by not joining in. If this marketplace of options is how we’re to understand one another, it seems quite a powerful thing.

But don’t all these things also have only passing value? The fact we chose them perhaps mattering more than the notion of keeping them. Rather than possessions being few and far between, carefully maintained, essentially functional items to help with life’s necessities, they’re now seeming disposable almost to the point of being discarded as soon as they’re selected.

When there’s so much choice, so many cheap and accessible options, perhaps the idea of having “more” overtakes the idea of anything having much worth (Notes Two). As if we’re desensitised to the relative luxury of having what we need and losing sight of what belongings actually add to our lives. When things are scarce, do we better appreciate their value? Less being more in the sense of focussing us on what truly matters.

On the other side, though, what’s the cost of it all? Given how little now seems designed to last, the amount of resources being used up and waste being generated by this way of operating must be fairly considerable. Then, socially, there’s all the time we spend chasing things and believing they complete us – the psychological burden of that, plus the kind of conversations we end up having around what’s actually important. (Notes Three)

It just seems fascinating that we might have more than humans have ever had yet seem quite careless about it. That we might be ploughing through limited resources – enjoying them briefly then clearing the space for more, cluttering up the world with discarded choices – in this quest to define ourselves and keep up with an ever-changing game of personal or social meaning.

Sometimes it seems such a strange way to be looking at things and spending the incredible opportunity life affords us.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: “Paradox of Choice”
Note 2: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 2: Goods & the wisdom in scarcity
Note 3: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 3: Making ends meet
Note 3: Some thoughts about “life”

In terms of how we live, isn’t it that we’re very much born into things? Much of what effectively shapes the course of our existence being, in many ways, determined by the social realities already existing around us. Almost as if we exist within this manmade reality of structures, policies and ideas affecting every area of our lives; our only freedom, perhaps, being how we respond.

Isn’t it true that society stands between us and the world? Mediating that relationship, telling us what to think and how to be, sheltering us from some things but burdening us with others. At this point, we presumably don’t know any different? How long’s it been since humans in the West have lived in direct relationship with nature? Increasingly, it seems like we’re living at ever-further distances from it. (Notes One)

Conceiving of “society” as a set of systems we’re born into, what’s that like? To arrive on the scene with all these naturally-endowed advantages or disadvantages almost completely beyond our control. To have our sense of self-worth, social acceptance or power determined, to quite a large extent, by how that world’s been saying to judge people like us. Doesn’t “all that” become the lived experiences of our lives?

It just seems interesting to imagine all the ways our lives are shaped by this being our reality – every moment, perhaps, being influenced by our appearance, the circumstances of our birth, or all the ways that’s been compounded over the years (Notes Two). Living within this human world of judgements, assumptions, and assigned estimations of worth seems a not insignificant reality we all have to contend with.

How much are we judging each other on those terms? Where do we get our ideas of what are acceptable or meaningful ways to judge people? Is “that” part of the system we live in too? The set of values by which we’re allowed – or, encouraged – to see and respond to those around us. The code that’s been bred into us around what’s valuable or otherwise within our community.

It’s fascinating to think that whatever the human “is” might be being poured into these situations the humans before them created, dreamt up or set in motion. The ideas once in their minds becoming the realities of our lives. The minds now filling them becoming the ones who, in turn, will uphold, improve or let fall away whatever systems they might have inherited. (Notes Three)

And, within it all, there are presumably many voices trying to tell us what “living this way” means for them, from a human perspective. Listening, we perhaps come to appreciate how well our “values” are working out in the real world. Seeing these systems through the eyes of those affected by them, our response may well be that something needs to give.

Isn’t it effectively down to us to change things? How else is anything to improve if the people living within modern systems don’t insist on their values being better brought to life.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Detaching from the world around us
Note 1: Treating people like sims?
Note 1: Having a sense for being alive
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: The struggle with being alive
Note 2: Absolute or relative value
Note 3: What it is to be human
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: Questions around choice

When we talk of making ends meet, it’s often a statement related to individuals: how well we’re balancing desire with capacity and finding the financial resources to square away all the essential items that make up our lives. Beyond that, though, isn’t it also a description of society? A sense of how well personal and collective interests marry up into a workable whole.

Our personal lives clearly have a long list of requirements: shelter, warmth, food, clothing, transport, entertainment, technology, growth. All we need – or feel we do – in order to participate within society as worthwhile, respectable citizens. Don’t many of those things, and how we’re going about them, effectively become our identity, our sense of status or of self-worth? (Notes One)

At its most fundamental, it’s presumably a picture of everyone feeling healthy, cared for, and motivated to engage productively, constructively and responsibly in making things work. That, from this foundation of balanced preparedness – all our essential physical, emotional, psychological needs having been met – we’re in the position to participate in social realities with the secure, firm footing of personal independence.

I would’ve thought that’s what we’re looking for with society: people being able to stand on their own and respond to life from that place of calm self-assurance. But, these days, it really seems such security is difficult to find. Everything changing so quickly, the psychological – let alone financial or mental – demands placed on everyone to “keep up” are perhaps impossible to meet (Notes Two).

Progress is funny, then, in that we seem the one’s funding it through buying these things, yet the minimal standards required to keep up with it all must be a huge burden – all these new products to evaluate, learn about, and somehow find money for. Markets might have a lot of good things going for them, but sometimes it seems the quantifiable stress and waste it’s all generating could outweigh many supposed benefits.

It’s almost as if industry runs ahead – fuelled by the desire for profit, excitement of competition, or ingenuity of our finest minds – and we’re all chasing the tail of trying to catch up and be whatever a modern human’s supposed to be (Notes Three). Like this artificial conversation spun out above our heads, speeding ahead of anything the human mind can truly comprehend or piece together into a meaningful whole.

It’s interesting to consider the impact it’s all having. Because, industry has its “ends” – it’s targets and sense of where things are headed. This commercial vision of a better world that’s harnessing our power of invention to rework the idea of human life, society, and our position on this planet. Working on those levels, the scope this has for reshaping our lives is potentially limitless.

And, within it all, live the humans trying to tally up our hopes for life with the space this world has in mind for us. How well we’re currently balancing genuine human needs with these other, commercial ones can be a strange thing to contemplate.

Notes and References:

Note 1: How we feel about society
Note 1: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 1: Attacks on our humanity
Note 1: This thing called love
Note 2: What’s not essential
Note 2: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 2: Goods & the wisdom in scarcity
Note 2: The insatiable desire for more
Note 2: Letting go of “who you are”
Note 3: Those who are leading us
Note 3: Do we really need incentives?
Note 3: Treating people like sims?
Note 3: Life’s never been simpler…

Thinking about how we got here, One thing leads to another mused over paths the West’s taken and where we now stand.

Sometimes I wonder if scarcity doesn’t contain its own form of wisdom, in how it effectively focuses in on what really matters. Whereas, with novelty and excess, it’s almost as if we lose that “line” between what we truly need and everything else that’s on offer.

Isn’t there a sense of indulgence to being in a position of “plenty” in that we’re free to make quite frivolous, unnecessary choices? Once essential needs have been met, aren’t we – almost by definition – in the world of excess? Living in that space, how are we to decide which non-essential items we want most? What sort of yardstick do we use for that?

Could it genuinely be true that less is more? That choosing what matters is better than chasing what doesn’t. Of course, seeing what matters isn’t always easy: we all have interests, desires, and expectations of what’s going to make us feel our life’s worthwhile, admirable or otherwise satisfying. What are we ever looking for in the things we seek to own? (Notes One)

Somehow, it also seems that the more we have the less we appreciate it. As if acquisition itself only makes us desire more. Do we become desensitised to the value of things, chasing instead the thrill of wanting, pursuing and attaining the next? Maybe, having many things, we’ve too little time to recognise their worth, or the stress of managing them starts outweighing any pleasure they give.

Strange maths is surely going on here? This balance of desire, attention, distraction, fear of loss, and the never-ending search for more, newer, better… How are we to judge what we truly need out of “all this” if, in all honesty, we don’t really “need” any of it? It seems an odd sort of basis for society, this unfettered pursuit of whatever our hearts desire (Notes Two). Aren’t we notoriously insecure and suggestible?

The calculations behind society may be fascinating to consider but impossible to unpick. To what extent is the West actually built on the pursuit of more? More knowledge, more understanding, more skilful realisation of laudable aims may be justifiable; but “more stuff” seems a pretty questionable foundation. What’s the social, psychological and environment cost to that? (Notes Three)

What if, with all our freedom and choice, we’re missing the point of where value lies? In a world of scarcity, we’d likely value our belongings quite highly – those resources and assets that serve us in building, maintaining and shoring up what truly matters in life. Moving out of that world, how do we re-establish a sense for what’s really needed? If we just follow our heart, where does it lead?

Perhaps what I’m asking there is: what guides us? Can we recreate wisdom in the world of plenty and somehow re-discover that “edge” where our choices are, again, necessary and constructive? Rather than chase whatever we’re after, could we engage with the freedom markets offer to act wisely for the good of society in all the ways that’s conceivable?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What’s not essential
Note 1: The insatiable desire for more
Note 1: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: “Small is Beautiful”
Note 2: One thing leads to another
Note 2: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 2: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 3: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 3: At what cost, for humans & for nature

We’re all born into such different situations, all dealt our hand of fundamental realities we have to live with. Society’s structure then determining how things play out; pre-existing cultural ideas and prevailing attitudes shaping any chance of moving much beyond our starting points or limitations.

Idealistically, society would work to even that out: offsetting “fate” somehow to ensure all have an equal chance to thrive and progress despite any obstacles we’re facing. In reality, it doesn’t often seem to work that way. Maybe because people perceive “assistance” as being in someway “unfair”? Maybe life’s moving at such a pace it’s hard for anyone to keep up.

It’s also, perhaps, “natural” that people don’t want to concede an advantage. Individually or collectively, it’s arguably not in anyone’s best interest and seems an unlikely path to take. What’s the incentive? Only loss, I’d imagine: handing back a strong suit or changing the rules of a game they looked likely to win. How many people do that?

We’re probably all quite caught up in the status this world’s offering; enjoying things and counting on them continuing. Personal identity seems so tangled in culture’s symbols and the sense of self we’ve gained through our position in society (Notes One). In the West, particularly, we have such luxury in our freedoms, opportunities and excesses – effectively, we do as we please.

But how much of “that” is based on inequality? What amount of our way of life is founded on pushing others down, even within our own communities? Whether economically or culturally, advantage as much as disadvantage seem like relative concepts: we are prettier, more stylish, or better able to afford a certain lifestyle “than” others. Doesn’t status only exist by way of comparison?

In that sense, it just seems unlikely people have much incentive to improve things. We’ve developed this combative, competitive approach to life that pretty much depends on there being these pervasive divisions (Notes Two). It’s a system that leads, almost naturally, to questioning whether we’ve placed the “right” values at the core of modern community.

Maybe that’s the aim of “progressive” elements: to address such attitudes and provide means for redressing ongoing disadvantages. Asking that we stop and re-evaluate how things are working must be important at this point, as what if we’re ploughing on in ways that lead toward a dangerous building up of social resentment and disconnection? Unless we tear each other apart first with angry idealism. (Notes Three)

Still I just wonder if we can go far enough in eradicating the imbedded inequalities of birth or capitalism. Especially when we’ve built life around profiting from natural endowments and superficial enhancements. Isn’t our culture – our sense of meaning, worth and success – largely based on deconstructing appearances and placing ourselves slightly or dramatically ahead of others?

Is this a way of life that can actually “work” the world over, or does it have limits? Maybe we need new ideas, new ways of thinking about human worth and its value within society.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: People, roles, reading that rightly
Note 1: What it is to be human
Note 2: Those who are leading us
Note 2: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 2: Do we really need incentives?
Note 3: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 3: Complication of being human
Note 3: What’s not essential

Can we separate people from their roles? In every area of life – workplace, community, relationships, society itself – aren’t we always playing some kind of role? We assume these parts, act consistently, and, doing so, make up the complex realities of all our lives. “Everything” is perhaps, at its core, an interwoven picture of all the roles we’re agreeing to take on.

Some we’re given at birth – looks, health, early life, socio-economic standing, basic demeanour are just some of the things effectively “handed to us” as we emerge into the world. Others we might adopt ourselves, because they seem to fit or we feel they’ll serve us somehow. Around every human there seem to be all these masks we’re wearing (Notes One).

And the drama of life perhaps just plays out on those terms? Different masks carry with them different degrees of power and status, affording their wearer the delightful advantage of how others then respond to their presence. Whether we’re talking about cultural ideas of beauty and style or the weight of socio-economic realities, there’s this sense in which we’re each assigned a place.

Is it possible to move beyond that, to see it for what it is? Isn’t it some form of illusion? Beneath it all, aren’t people simply people? Isn’t a lot of “this” simply inherited and undeserved? Isn’t “what we make of things” ultimately more telling?

The psychology’s fascinating – how is it we’re taught to feel about ourselves? Society has its history, all these stories and the qualities they supposedly portray, this strange pride or shame at paths each country has followed into the present day. We all carry such “baggage”. All this stereotyping, branding and spin we’re constantly dragging into the present and projecting onto the future (Notes Two).

Isn’t it all a picture of “what we value”? The narratives of economics and culture seem, in many ways, to be a conversation about values in either of those two realms (Notes Three). And certain roles or positions in life are seemingly more valued than others – placed up on a pedestal, deferred to, and given great power within society.

What on earth does it mean, though? Why do we assign meaning, value or worth and relate to one another this way? Maybe, as humans, we need some code or sense of meaning in order to understand reality and apply ourselves within it. But, is this the right one? Is this the best way to be looking at people, judging status and deciding how to act?

Society clearly assigns to some more prestigious roles than others (Notes Four). Those who labour, tend and nurture seem less valued for their work than those who direct, manage or set projects in motion. But aren’t those the roles that keep things going by sustaining environments, relationships and assets? Isn’t it possible we’ve underestimated the value of all we’re bringing to life?

Could we come to see the truth of who we are, what we’re doing, and what it all means differently?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Masks we all wear
Note 1: Letting go of “who you are”
Note 1: At what point are we just humans?
Note 2: Stories that bind us
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 2: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 3: Language and values
Note 3: Mathematics of life
Note 3: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 3: Economics & the realm of culture
Note 4: Those who are leading us
Note 4: The beauty in home economics

Beyond all this, there are then the perhaps more timeless questions explored in Absolute or relative value & Worthless, or priceless?