What is worth?

This post was inspired in a way by the song "Surface Pressure" that appears in encanto. Specifically, the line "I'm pretty sure I am worthless if I can't be of service." After all Mahatma Ghandi said "The best way to find yourself is in the service of others." It is also funny, that I had a conversation with a friend not too long ago about being rich. How it is not the people who have everything that are rich. It is the people that want for nothing. How greed, lust, and desire, are all things that make us poor. I also would like to abolish any delusion, that I come from any kind of money. That this conversation was between a bartender who is struggling to come up with rent for the next month, and his friend, a server who is working 6 days a week because she needs some extra cash in order to make ends meet. This conversation was not held by some pampered, trust fund baby, being fanned by a servent with a palm frond, lounging about on a sofa, with someone equally so far removed from the everyday hardships of people, that they think being poor is having to wear the same clothes for more than 1 day, before discarding them into the trash. I emphasize this point only because of how often I see the "money doesn't matter - said by people who have money, looks don't matter -said by the people who are beautiful, etc." memes online. I make it by, better than some, but if I miss a week of work it severly hinders me, and if we have a slow week, the same thing happens. If this changes, I will let people know, and will not feign being this way once I actually start making decent money, if I start making decent money.

Just saying that Jessica Darrow and Lin-Manual Miranda did an amazing job on the the song. Not gonna lie, listening to it I teared up, and again while I'm listening to it while writing this.The performance is just phenominal.

What it means to be rich?

This technically isn't what is worth, but I brought the conversation up, so I might as well have a discussion about it here. What does it mean to be truly rich? Is it to have money? If so, then when do you stop. When do you become rich, as in what is the dollar amount? Is it when you can buy an Island? A private jet? A mansion? A house? A car? A sandwich? There is definitely a point on this line from negative infinity to positive infinity, that you go from poor, to lower middle class, to upper middle class, to rich. There are more stages, but you get the point. I can say with 100% confidence that there are exact points on the line that you stop becoming stage A and become stage B, but I wouldn't necessarily know where to put them, other than the transition point from A to B is lower on the line than the transition from stage B to C. This all being said, money is only as usefull as you have things to spend it on. If you have vast riches, but bury them in the backyard, 10 feet down, so no one can get to it, then what use is it at all, might as well not even have it. I don't really want to dive into economic theory in this post. It is not one of my areas of expertise, sure I could do research on it give you the different tax brackets, and say that once you reach this bracket, then you are officially rich. I also do not want to say that money is only as valuable as what you can spend it on, and dive into the finer details on the point. I feel like it is a generally accepted notion that if money couldn't be spent as a way to aquire goods, then people wouldn't use it, but I do not want to go deeper than that. I have no interest in discussing the finer points on supply and demand, right here, right now.

So what does it mean to be truly rich? I think most people, maybe even myself to some extent, have this idea, that being rich is to be living in excess. To be able to gorge yourself on whatever desire you have, and when you've had your fill, you order one more just to be sure, and consume it just as ravenously as the first. This implies an idea about being rich, that you are living well beyond your wants. That you don't have to want for anything. It's a little funny to think that this is also considered being spoiled, if only because of where I am going with this. But what if we didn't want for much of anything, if our wants only consisted of 3 meals a day, a place to sleep, and a place to bathe. These seem like frugal living conditions, though it is unfortunate that sometimes, people don't even get these. But if this was all someone wanted, but they had the money to afford a couch and a table, and some chairs. Then would they not be living in excess of their desires. Which is what we said being rich was? The easiest way to become rich is not by managing financials properly, and some might say that it is nearly impossible to become rich by managing financials properly in this day and age. But it is by the proper management of our desires in which we find the easiest way to become rich.

It is also worth mentioning, I am not advocating that people should give up their coffee, in order to save money, because yes the little things add up over time. Companies should pay a living wage. They don't, I don't necessarily think they ever will. But they should. We should never stop expecting that from jobs. This is just a call for self control and self discipline. That if we don't fill every whim that overcomes us, we are then taking steps to make ourselves richer.

What role we play?

We all play a role in society. We all have at least one, daughter, or son, etc. I don't know the ones for non-binary people. We are assigned those at birth, it doesn't necessarily matter what it is, just that we have one that we are given. Over time we grow, and we are shaped by the role. In ancient times after a certain age the sons were started to be taught things like hunting and fishing, fighting and so on while the daughters were taught mending, gathering, caretaking, and so on. We eventually get molded by the roles we are given. Not because of the role themselves, but because of the expectations people have of that role. This distinction is made because for the most part, roles do not change. They are the same roles we have had for thousands of years, the names have changed, but what has changed the most is what society expects from them. Especially in the modern day, when gender is becoming more and more of a fluid, rather than what it has been in the past, or rather it is being accepted as fluid, while in the past it has not been.

Roles are funny. I fully beleive that in the beginning, we are not shaped by our roles, it is only later that we become shaped by them. Once we have played the role enough to experience it. Once we start questioning "What would a good X do?" or "What would (person that has been a good version of this) would do?", example "What would Uncle Iroh say?" when Zuko is looking for guidance but his Uncle, a wise man and his typical source of wisdom and guidance, isn't there to give it to him. (Yes, I like Avatar: The Last Airbender). It is when we accept the roles, as something we should fulfill, that we are thus molded by them, because we are actually trying to shape ourselves into the role. Thus a cycle, of society, imposing a role upon someone, someone living their best life, picks up the role, and then is molded by this role. Then in general, we say that the people who don't accept the roles handed to them are losers, example, hippies in the 80's. I don't think anything is bad about them, and I wasn't alive in their time, but I do acknowledge that in the very least the media portrays at least there was a faction of people who thought this way, with a suprising amount of old men screaming "Those damn hippies!" This being said, I fully acknowledge as well, that for everypoint there is a counterpoint. A Ying, and a Yang if you will.

I find that we have great inner turmoil, when either we are assigned a role, that we don't particularly like, or that we cannot fulfill our role well, *maybe something else*.

A role we don't want.

There are a ton of stories about roles we don't want. In "Brother Bear" Hakota didn't want to be a bear, because it represented love. In "Star wars" Luke didn't want to leave his home in order to join Obi-wan and the other Jedi. Bilbo didn't want to leave the shire. I didn't want to be considered a nerd in highschool. I played football, soccer, would've done wrestling if I didn't tear my ACL and meniscus, lifted weights, but also I liked physics, Star Wars, programming, Lord of the Rings. I didn't like being a nerd though. Or what I associated with the role. I got into a fight with one of my ex's because she called me a nerd, and I was so insecure about it, and she had no idea why. It was just apart of me.

I don't really know if I have good wisdom to share here. Though I have gone through many different journeys of self-acceptance. I have also gone through many different journeys of self-destruction, to destroy parts of myself, that I disliked. But also this is about not only accepting the parts that you don't like about yourself (Brother Bear) But it is about accepting the call to action to things that we don't want to do but have to anyways (The Lord of the Rings). I also don't want to give advice, that is "Always accept the call to action!" because there are going to be many journeys that you just shouldn't go on. You just shouldn't take every road that presents itself to you. Though I know for a decent amount of them that are presented to me, which ones I should take and which one's I shouldn't. I don't know how to put that into words, right now, and I am not sure that I ever will. I am not sure I will ever be able to espound or pontificate as I am fond of doing on which path is right for anyone at anypoint in time in their lives. I am very good at giving advice, I listen well, and am able to give sound advice for people, in particular situations. But I do not think that I can talk about the general case, and provide an explicit diagram of yes or no questions that you should ask yourself in order to solve any given situation.

An unexpected Journey

In Patrick Rothfuss's series called "The King Killer Chronicles", which is still unfinished as of writing this. The main character meets someone along the journey, and he kinda teaches the main character about what is called "The Lethani" Which this is somewhat of a parrallelism to Taoism, or Daoism, which are alternate spellings for the same word. In which Tao or Dao is roughly translated to "way", "path", "route", or "road."

"Literally 'the way', Tao refers to the way things develop naturally, the way nature moves along and living beings grow and decline in accordance with cosmic laws." The Tao is ultimately indescribable and transcends all analysis and definition. Thus, the Tao Te Ching begins with: "The Tao that can be told is not eternal Tao." - From Wikipedia

Just a small reading of the wikipedia page on Daoism. Funny. Maybe I will do more research, and reading and write something about it in the future. But I think this is where I will leave this for now. Taoism

I think that for some roles that you don't find yourself liking, stick with it for a while, and see if you like it, I know I have had some grow on me over time. But also some roles, should be cast aside, and not given the chance to sink its teeth into us. Some roles will take us on journeys, we might find desirable, but only lead to pain and suffering. I hope wisdom guide you to figure out which are which. I will admit that some paths that only lead to pain are needed to be taken, but others will just lead to needless suffering.

Failing to fulfill the role

I struggle with this, a lot. Not necessarily fulfilling my role, as I still have my job, and I get decent grades in school, so obviously I am fulfilling my role in both places. But it feels like I am failing everytime, someone comes behind the bar to help me. It feels like I am failing at my role when I don't understand a concept for a class. That if I studied more, like a good student would, then I would understand it, and that I shouldn't need to ask for help. That needing help, makes me not good enough. Afterall "who am I if I can't run with the ball?" The funny part of it, is that it's never a question of if I will eventually have the ability. I am always certain that if I have more time with a concept that I will eventually understand it. That if I practice more with making the new cocktail menu that I will make them faster. I have unshaking confidence in my ability to surmount obstacles given enough time, and energy. It's just an constant, "If I need help, then I shouldn't be here", "If I walk into the water knowing I cannot swim and I drown, then I got what I deserved." It's strange. I am always one of the first people to help others. Yet, I have this mentallity, this complete discompassion for myself. From my experience online I am not alone in this. This weird sense of pride, that infects people. Funnily enough Merriam-Webster dictionary defines pride as "reasonable self-esteem" while Oxford defines it as "the quality of having an excessivly high opinion of oneself or ones own importance." One definition that pride is based in reason, the other in excess. But this is an excess of the thought that "Oh, them, they are only human, they can make errors every once in a while, but me no. I need to be perfect."

"Comparison is the thief of happiness" is something I have seen from time to time online typically the "My friend just got a tatoo that said 'Comparison is the thief of happiness', and I wanna get it, but just a little bit bigger" posts, which its true, I'm sure everyone has at least one time, typically when they were young, where they had a project that they worked hard on, spent a lot of time doing their best. Then go to class the day that it is due, and just see someone else, whose project just seems so much better than theirs, and they probably didn't even try. I know I have had plenty of experiences with both, when I had a college project that I worked hard for, spent weeks on it, and then the data got corrupted and I had to redo it in 2 days, and it was just terrible. All the flaws in full view for all to see, and I knew and hated every second of the presentation. Or, when I did a project in highshcool on "Big Data" (I have always been somewhat of a computer person). I was a serial procrastinator and I bought the trifold project board, and before class that day, I looked up 4 paragraphs describing "Big Data" and I had like 10 minutes before the project was due, and the center peice of the trifold board was completely blank. So, I drew a big funnel in the center, and when people would walk around and I tell them about what big data was, I had them sign their name in the funnel. The teachers liked it sooo much. I spent maybe a grand total of 20 minutes on the project. I have sense done plenty of "Game Jams" where I make a video game in 2 days or 1 week and I have had plenty of them go positively and plenty go poorly. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every second of it, and every time I do one, I learn more about programming, and gain skills that I don't think I would have today if I didn't do them. I learned valuable lessons from both the sucesses and failures.

Hell, I post these, whatever these are for the world to see, not particularly expecting anyone to read them. But they could. I don't put time to edit these after I write them. I don't necessarily even care to. I to some extent, want the flaws to be included, as a testiment to the fact I am human. I create errors, all the time. This is apart of me, but I also don't stand by anything that I have written here. The only thing that I will say that I believed whatever I wrote, when I did it. But as soon as I am done, my opinion is subject to change. I try to grow as a human every second of every day. It is not terribly uncommon for me to have one opinion about a subject at morning, and a new one by night time. I want to constantly challenge myself, and challenge those opinions in order to constantly evolve, hopefully for the better. Some of these posts I will be proud of in the future, and Im sure some of them I will be equally ashamed of. But, at the time this post was purely me, and I don't want to hide who I am. But the second I post this, it is no longer me, it is who I was. Which brings us to the next part.

Take pride in what you do is something people have said at somepoint, see give a monkey a type writter, and an infinite amount of time, and he will eventually produce one of shakespear's plays. But in a less sardonic note, Take pride in what you do, is something I have heard. And its good advice, do a good job is essentially what it is saying. But also, know that it will never be perfect. The wall you built wasn't made to live forever, it will eventually crumble, but that is not to say "Oh well, if it will eventually crumble, then why even do a good job" which is something of a nihilistic point of view. Yes, it will crumble, but there is something to be said on how it is human, to know that it will crumble, but to build it any ways, to build it and build it well, and if it should crumble in my life time I will be there to build it again. If it doesn't crumble in my lifetime, I can rest knowing that I did well, but also knowing that if the wall is still needed by the time it crumbles, then it shall be built anew, by different hands. Everything we do, is mortal. Everything has a start date, and an end date. Some are longer than others, but it always ends the same. So do your best, it might not last forever, but it was still worth trying your best on anyways. But also know that it wasn't made to last forever, and that is okay. That though there is apart of you in each peice of work that you do, and that there is some of that peice of work in you. You are not defined by that peice of work. You will build great things, and probably some useless peices of garbage. And just as you are not a useless peice of garbage, because you created one, you are also not some grand monument, just because you created one. It is important to know that this goes in both directions. It is not what we have done that defines us. Or rather it is not the only thing that defines us. Our past has a part, but it only makes sense that our present, and our future hold a part of what defines us as well. And that when we present ourselves to others that we remember that it is not only all the things that we have done well, but also the things that we have done poorly that should be included as well.

The Question of the Day

Well, it seems like I haven't talked a whole lot about worth. Though the entire thing reaks of philosophy, of all kinds, Taoism, Stoicism, Nihilism, Absurdism, can all be found here. And I think that embodies something that I hold of great value, and that is getting wisdom from all sorts of places, and not just one type. Do not let this be comfused in going to multiple sources, as there are plenty of sources that all think alike, and it is easy to find oneself in an echo chamber.

And I suppose I should actually answer my own question. What is worth. It is value, in its simplest sense. What something is worth to you will vary day by day. Water might be a plentiful resource today, and a highly scarce and coveted one tomorrow. One might value truth and honesty today, but the sweet taste of lies tomorrow. It is constantly changing, as we change. What we need at a particular time is how we value things, how pretty something is to us, how abundant something is to us, how things make us feel. All of these things generate some sort of value and as a result worth. One step back from that is also how valuable something seems to others, also affects how we perceive it. I don't really want to talk about economic theory, but in a gold rush, I'll be the one selling pickaxes.

We like to fulfill our role because, doing so often makes us feel good. It feels good to help other people. So it is easy to feel worthless, when we percieve our role, that we fulfill as worthless, or that we can't fulfill our role. A screwdriver is nearly worthless when you are dealing with nails. And a broken clock might be right twice a day, but it is hardly a good way to tell the time.

Many of these ideas are extrinsic factors. How we are percieved by others, is something that we have no control of. But we can always make ourselves feel better, self-affirmations are a popular way of doing so. It is by focusing on the external factors, and setting our self worth based on those external factors, that we find a fluctuating, and highly volitile source and sense of worth. Human beings are becoming a highly abundant commodity, an estimated 8.1 billion people and growing, and products like tinder are commodifying people more and more. One moment you are in the spotlight and the next you are not. Trending topics change like the wind. It is also easy to not value our own time, and company, because we have a lot of it. We experience it 100% of our time here on earth. But its important to know that you yourself are rare. That you are 1 in 8.1 billion people. For every one of your seconds that exist, there are 8.1 billion seconds also going by. Your time is not evn a percentage of the total time being experienced on this earth, and that makes it extremely rare. Value it. Assign that worth. It will stick with you, and never change. Hell, its only getting rarer by the day. Assign your worth by things in your control and you will live a more content life.

I know it is easier said than done. I still feel like shit everytime I need help behind the bar. I know I wont always feel that way though. It is something that I need to practice. Self love, self apprecciation, knowing sure I needed help this one time, but 99% of the time I get by great on my own. With practice things get easier. I used to say difficulty is an imagined concept, somethings just take longer than others to be able to do. I don't really know why I stopped. Maybe I'll start again.

Love the Journey.