Analysis of the Self: The Measure of Worth

How is worth measured? Things are often valued when they help one reach a goal. That is how the common value of things is derived. This value may be determined by a mean’s efficiency. It could be an issue of flexibility, with the option of multiple means or multiple ends at once. It could also be the new existence of a means, or the first way of reaching an end previously unobtainable. When worth is defined by usefulness, it is subjective in that each person has different goals, as well as preferred methods of reaching such goals. Thus, the perceived utility involved here is a product of human will, as it is that will that must be aligned with the purpose of the object for the thing in question to be valued. Of course, such worth can be ascribed to both tangible and intangible things.

Worth is likely seen much differently when the subject is a human being. Those who value humans based on usefulness do not actually value humans as living creatures, but as moving objects. Beyond this value is that which is brought about by personal affection – love. Such love is going to be relative in one sense or another. Even unconditional love is going to be finite to humans, but this very love is what goes beyond judging worth by potential and empirical data.

How is worth seen within the self? This is also relative, and can exist as both a measurement of utility and a love of the self. Neither are particularly bad so long as they are not distorted. Measuring the worth of one’s role in society is going to require a cost-benefit analysis. Measuring the value of one’s existence on its own is rooted in personal love (though an understanding of God’s love for the individual is also important when incorporating an objective point of view). When imbalanced, the former can either curtail the total value of something or overlook the value of existence altogether. On the other hand, the latter is capable of inflating the value of something completely, especially in comparison to something else.

The ego is essentially a feeling or representation of personal worth. What the ego does is perpetuate identity and the value therein. It is essential when circumventing the problems existent when a person is outwardly undervalued, but it can also make selfless behavior, a product of love for others, a much rarer event. A balanced ego is tantamount to creating a sensible measurement of worth for things, ideas, and people. Otherwise, things may not seem good enough for the self, ideas not good enough when not originating within, and people not good enough in comparison to the individual in question.

New Ideas: Ideals and Reality

All can be organized by associated values, but not all values may be known. Some are known, some are deduced, some are experienced, and some will remain unknowable. The unknowable is truly a statement about our inability to perceive, a reflection of our nature hiding in the abyss. Yet the unknown can be pursued, and the known will be validated or invalidated in return. However, if the known is unchanging, and we hold this to be optimal, then we have created our own prison.

Let us consider one of the more basic of necessities. Light is valuable, but this value is not always appreciated to the fullest extent. To fix this, there must be darkness, as darkness brings greater value to the light.  However, while the appreciation for light from the experience of darkness is an ideal state, the darkness itself is not. Darkness must then be temporal – a temporary challenge to give the individual a greater understanding of how good light can be.

There must be a distinction between two opposites or two unlike qualities, and this distinction must be felt within our very bones. It must divide our senses and split the sky of possibility, raining down upon us the realization that reality has changed to its core. Our perception cannot be clouded. We must see the clouds for what they are, a frame to rightly position our true desires, and the values they represent. The bursts of light hidden beyond the clouds that flash in our minds like wildfire.

The revelation is that experience is a double-edged sword, and rightly so. Yet, while the danger acts as a precursor to precious things, it is not valuable in and of itself. Only through the potential of its existence, and our acknowledgement of that potential, does the pain hold any real worth. Reality is fresh, wonderful, cruel, and frightening. The potentials may breed the longing for cessation – escape – but in accepting the reality for what it is, our minds can see the truth. A new prize has been gifted, and we experience the joy of its discovery as we save it for later use, when newer revelation can be uncovered and compared, or when the old becomes the most valuable of realities, stagnation becoming a welcome home.

A newer perspective is bound to be greater than the last, perhaps not in depth, but in breadth, surely, as this new reality is built upon the old foundations. But newness will always hold the potential of stagnation when the potential of change is present. The absence of new potentials – ever-present stasis – makes reality absolute in expression, and inescapable through its unqualified nature. There is no  growth or regression. There is only inertia. However, we know that such lethargy can only be felt as true when there is indeed something just beyond the horizon.

Newness is always a possibility for the temporal expressions of man, but whether the change, or its utter lack, is noticed is a different matter. This is subjective perception at its roots, yet all circumstantial viewpoints hold the same three possibilities – progression, regression, or stagnation – all products of causation. No particular state needs to be an ideal on its own, as all states can appear as a fresh experience. Existence within a cage grants credence to the value of life outside of it. All states are elements of a much grander destiny, one that lies beyond the realization that we must be the change we seek.

Newness cannot be constrained as an element of tangible things or intangible ideas. It must remain as a constant ideal itself, existing as discovery that can never remain complete. The adventure of new dimensions of understanding, the dream of exploration and the dreams to follow, will take us beyond the gray world of conflicting certainty and belief, and most assuredly above the egotistical praise of personal circumstance. It is in the desire for the object where our true desire should lie. We should desire to desire, and in presenting this idea to a fallen world, we become ever closer to the unknowable truth we seek, evolving our ability to perceive as a species despite the darkness of the abyss.