RIP Story: October 11th, 2024

When I saw this image the first time, I immediately wanted to write about the concept of value and how it’s been turned into the accumulation of currency wealth. Just because someone doesn’t have a dollar in their pocket, doesn’t mean they don’t have value to the community. Unfortunately, the collective race for dollars we’ve constructed for ourselves shines such a light on money collection as the goal, the shadows make everything else invisible.

Value, how do we go about changing the definition of value? It feels like there are small shifts in the way people want to spend their time. The prevailing generational wind suggests that working harder for other people isn’t the path some want to take anymore. There is a significant population who are trying to define their own lives while there is another population trying to figure out how to break the chains.

There is a lot to examine in this thought experiment so I’m going to pick one thing, and there is a very good chance we will be making stops on this one for…..a while?

Let’s start big, the value of a human to the community.

The unspoken value of the person next to me is “how much can this person help me in my career or pursuit for the next dollar bill?” I’ve experienced this in the workplace. There are certain levels you can achieve in Corporate America where you see the decisions being made for the sake of personal bonuses. You can see the frustration and “out of character” choices being made because some metric isn’t being met.

Never spoken aloud, but you are valued as highly as you are able to move the agendas of other people forward. Thinking about the people I value most; it is the people who taught me something. The people who took the time to listen or asked me a question in the interest of getting to know me. The people I recall from my career who gave me skin deep interactions, and showed their true dollar chasing interests have been forgotten. They’ve turned into the mist of a concept.

We’ve become so specialized in society; we’ve removed the available space to learn alternate skills beyond the level of a hobby. I don’t have time to spend in another department; no one wants to take away from my department’s agenda and no one wants to risk taking time away to train someone else. Sure, there are a select few who are afforded the opportunity to cross-train, but in my experience that group is small, and they tend to be the people who are already liked by those in charge.

I’m running out of time today, so what’s the point of all this?

To nudge society off what feels like a non-sustainable path; we need to redefine value. The example above is deeply rooted in my corporate experience. That makes for a good, yet very biased, starting place. As humans, we have needs that must be met, we also have dreams that should not be hidden in the shadows. My hope is that a series like this will be the sort of thought experiment that adds to the healing process we must travel as a species. I hope that future generations are better prepared to make life decisions based on a different definition of value; with a light that shines on all the possibilities in life. I’m out of time and I don’t have a tight bow for this, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.

EPILOGUE: HUGE concept and I was flying by the seat of my pants. I’ve wanted to write about the concept of value for a while. When the image came up, I knew what I was going to write about today. I will move this series over to the Typewriter Musing sections and keep if going there. I hope to tighten up the arguments and ideas over time. For now, you get to sit with me as we work our way through this idea. Hopefully we can feel good about ourselves at the end.