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The Importance Of... ah. Importance
14 years ago
Originally, I had a big post figured out about cars, and how a car can be art and blah blah blah, but this just came to me a bit ago, so I figure I'll run with it. Go grab your wallet; no really, I'll wait. Once you've done that, I want you to pull out some money. It doesn't matter if it's a dollar, a dime or a fifty, just take a tangible piece of money and hold onto it for a moment. We do this so often that, by now, you probably don't even think about it.
Now try this: describe money. Define it. What is it? What does it do? Where does it come from? Our entire society as a whole is based around this currency, but does anyone every stop to ask why? Does anyone wonder, even for a moment, what money actually is? Probably not. You see, money is a very strange object - on it's own, it has absolutely no value to society whatsoever. And yet, everything we do is based on it. We live and die by the clock, and what does the clock give us? Money. But if you try to explain what money is to someone who has never used it, the concept is foreign and alien. Money is a promise. It's a promise that, somewhere down the line, someone has done work equal to the denomination that you're holding. Somebody out there believes that somebody did that much work. It's a rather strange association; we've forced an importance on something that has none.
Still with me? Okay, glad that I didn't lose you up there. Now here's the next bit - list off five things that you consider important. Friends, family, your car, your house, whatever you find important. Even the environment or your country, just anything. What makes them important? Why do those things take precedence in your life? To someone else, would they have the same value?
I realized today, and sort of in passing a couple times before, that importance is a completely null term. Nothing is important in the sense that it matters to the universe as a whole, with a few exceptions. Light, water, air and soil pop to mind immediately, and even some of those are questionable; a fish can survive without air, so to speak, and there's many animals that live without light. What I'm trying to get at here is that importance, being important or even being called important, none of it makes any sense. If you end up important, it's only because others have made you so; things that you've created, they brought in and made a part of themselves. Those who look up to you are literally the only reason anything you say, do, or think get elevated above the random wafflings of an insane hobo.
Importance can also be negative; if people are pointing and making fun, they're still validating your existence by keeping an eye on you. It's rather humorous how that works.
Anyway, this is getting rather long winded, I'm tired and I've got class bright and early, so I think I'll end it here. Pardon the random post, just something I've had bouncing around in my head.
Now try this: describe money. Define it. What is it? What does it do? Where does it come from? Our entire society as a whole is based around this currency, but does anyone every stop to ask why? Does anyone wonder, even for a moment, what money actually is? Probably not. You see, money is a very strange object - on it's own, it has absolutely no value to society whatsoever. And yet, everything we do is based on it. We live and die by the clock, and what does the clock give us? Money. But if you try to explain what money is to someone who has never used it, the concept is foreign and alien. Money is a promise. It's a promise that, somewhere down the line, someone has done work equal to the denomination that you're holding. Somebody out there believes that somebody did that much work. It's a rather strange association; we've forced an importance on something that has none.
Still with me? Okay, glad that I didn't lose you up there. Now here's the next bit - list off five things that you consider important. Friends, family, your car, your house, whatever you find important. Even the environment or your country, just anything. What makes them important? Why do those things take precedence in your life? To someone else, would they have the same value?
I realized today, and sort of in passing a couple times before, that importance is a completely null term. Nothing is important in the sense that it matters to the universe as a whole, with a few exceptions. Light, water, air and soil pop to mind immediately, and even some of those are questionable; a fish can survive without air, so to speak, and there's many animals that live without light. What I'm trying to get at here is that importance, being important or even being called important, none of it makes any sense. If you end up important, it's only because others have made you so; things that you've created, they brought in and made a part of themselves. Those who look up to you are literally the only reason anything you say, do, or think get elevated above the random wafflings of an insane hobo.
Importance can also be negative; if people are pointing and making fun, they're still validating your existence by keeping an eye on you. It's rather humorous how that works.
Anyway, this is getting rather long winded, I'm tired and I've got class bright and early, so I think I'll end it here. Pardon the random post, just something I've had bouncing around in my head.
People inherently are social people, or so I've read - People WANT to have friends, to talk to, to associate themselves with. There's a reason why that some people together are happy with each other to talk about some video game they love, or love to put down others from the seat of their own chairs, because they have others to do it with.
With money, it's a form of currency, a method that's supposed to put a hard value on items and such, and be unlike bartering stuff. ... I don't know what else to say, so, have fun with school and junk~