We live in an age where the gap between virtual life and real life is ever but subtly widening. An age of distraction. There are so many things calling for our attention, demanding, insisting, enticing, and intruding. Distractions lead to shallow thinking, and shallow thinking leads to shallow living. Distractions lead to shallow communication, which leads to shallow relationships.
Distraction is the true enemy of deep living, and deep relationships.
We go online to check one thing, and then another, and then another, chats, messages, comments,....one hour, two hours, four hours, and the whole day is gone, day after day. We are plugged in to this virtual system so much we forget that people are not online, not really. They are here with us, in our hearts, and in our homes, on our streets and offices, across the river and seas, living, feeling, schooling, starving, working, and getting old, and dying.
Their profiles are online but their personalities are not. Their pictures are online but their lives are not. Their words, wonderful or ordinary, are online, but their idiosyncratic peculiarities, their inclinations, tendencies, traits, struggles, secrets, and desires are neither in the black and white of what we read, nor in the color and shine of the pictures we see. We may meet someone online, but cannot know them except we disconnect from the virtual world.
Ironically, it is an age of disconnection. In the days of the post office box, this would be akin to writing a letter, putting our pictures in the envelope, and posting it to a friend or relative, with a view to, and longing for a proper visit. Now because this posting happens much easier and much faster, the illusion of adequate interaction is created.
Like the chicken and the egg -which came first -argument. That it should be an argument is amusing, as it is evident that chickens do not really come from eggs, chickens come from chickens (wrapped in eggs). And that eggs do not birth eggs; rather, they come from chickens. Eggs are the medium, chickens- the substance. (Of course the chicken came first.)
The hen may brood on the eggs for a while, but the idea is to be with her chicks eventually. She does not sit on eggs forever and form an alliance with eggs, hatching and laying and hatching ad infinitum, to the detriment of relating with the chicks thereof. Computers like eggs are dead in themselves, although existing to serve a vital purpose, it (that purpose) should never rise to the point of usurping the really living things.
It is important to be on social media, but social media cannot substitute for actual human interaction. Human beings are the substance, social media is the medium. People come first, social media second. We shouldn't stick with social media all day long and expect to know people, or to have any real family, or community life.
Man has tried to connect to man using computers, but computers cannot connect men. They don't have the capacity. They have no soul. Machines are vast, but they are not deep. They may seem intelligent, but are not sentient. Software helps us to transfer information, and that is important, but no matter how much it tries to personalize our interactions, the depths of the human being is several fathoms beneath the reach of electronics. We have only succeeded in connecting and networking computers, but we ourselves are driven further apart.
The younger generation is plugged in more tenaciously and dependently. There is so much unbridled flux of all kinds of data. The dividing line between important and trivial matters is thinning rapidly. Matters of great importance are more quickly forgotten, while we celebrate face-value events. Empathy is less felt and less understood, culture and social tact are all but non-existent. Attention span has surely dwindled. We have become computers- forever plugged in. It is a battle for the soul, and for humanity. The electronic information age has come with a heavy price, and have we counted the cost?
We have not been deficient in exploring the strengths of the internet, but we have, on acknowledging its limits.
Meet people, spend more offline time with friends, visit with family, join actual healthy on-the-ground groups, linger a bit to actually talk with people, be active in church. Folks, spend more time offline. We should always take the chance to actually interact. And if it seems to not be there, we have to make it.
Let's stop using rulers to measure weight.
Cheers.
Wednesday 17 September 2014
The Economy of Value I
Man ought to tell money what the value of a thing is, and never vice versa. We shouldn't get an impression of the value of a thing from the price tag on it. This is because money, the means of exchange, is actually of little value in and of itself. It takes on the value of what it could purchase, or be exchanged for. The value of money is not intrinsic, but imparted. Without things to market, money is without value, but without money, things still retain their intrinsic values. A tree is a tree, a rock a rock, a diamond a diamond, and an education -an education.
If I paid a certain amount of money to educate my child, I would not equate the value of that education to the fees paid. I won't say my child had a 40 million or a 60 million education. The value of my child's education cannot be expressed in monetary terms, even though it was purchased at a particular amount. Educating my child has a value of its own that is very different from what it cost. So it is with everything of value in life. Money represents an accurate estimation of COST, but a rough estimation, and sometimes very rough, of VALUE.
Cost and value bear a certain relationship, but there is sometimes a whole world of difference. They are related to the extent that the more valuable a thing is, the costlier it should be. However value is an intrinsic quality and has several determinants and characteristics which money cannot measure. Something may bear heavy cost and be of little value and quite useless, whilst another thing may bear light cost and prove invaluable. Money therefore has a poverty when it comes to value, by virtue of its own lack of value, and the key is to separate these two, in the pursuits of life.
Therefore the lesson is to put value where value belongs, and money where money belongs. Money is useful therefore, not valuable. Certain things are valuable, but money is not one of them. Money is used to mobilize those things, and there it should end. It should not be at the centre of our endeavors nor the reason for rising early or sitting up late. Although very useful for the exchange of value, we must not get carried away to the point where we defocus from things of actual value and usurp their place by making money itself the reason for everything. It turns the course of society upside down. That is the lesson.
It is a very important lesson. It makes us never give up something of quality for the sake of money, something like honesty or a calling. It is the difference between ambition and vision, making money and serving a purpose, competition and innovation, the need to meet up with status and the simplicity of personal satisfaction. A thing which if understood, will change the world. It requires us to go for what is expedient, not what is imminent and pressing on us, with or without value. It requires us to go for what will outlast us instead of what will announce us. It gives us the freedom to make choices over what actually is, than what only seems to be. It considers posterity as a true measure of prosperity, by placing personal aggrandizement second to nation building. We are safe where value is the reason, but where money is the reason…..everything falls apart. In slow motion.
Placing value on things that are actually valuable, and letting money serve those things gives rise to a value system. When on the other hand, value is placed on money, having money, and making money; the value of things that actually have value decreases, sometimes to the point of insignificance. That is called a money system. In a money system, I could sacrifice honesty or integrity, the goal is to make money. I could buy beauty, or seek to sell sensitive information. It is the reason for every dirty and unsavory cut-throat event that occurs in the business world.
The reason why we have a failed state is that it operates a money system instead of a value system. Say politics and money comes to mind. A friend who gets a political appointment is perceived as one connected not to leadership, nor nation building, but one connected to money, and one who would soon become very rich. At the back of the rush for government projects and contracts is little to do with the passion for nation building. The main deal is that at every junction along such business is the opportunity for money to be gained. That is a money system. While it may be obvious that such a system is partly the reason for a failed state, it mightn’t readily be seen that on a personal level, it equally gives rise to failure.
If one wants to have a lot of money and it is to be meaningful eventually, one would have to have a lot of value, and get money to work it. Like a business with one worker, which as it expands gets more workers. Or a house with servants. The wealthy men today, and from time, get to a point where they give out almost all the money they have, and make even more in no time. They operate, not a money system, but a value system. Like a servant, they send money around; and it comes back. Those who have obtained riches otherwise, even though they now have the means to make wealth, find it extremely difficult because they do not understand value. They have to hold on to what they have rather tenaciously, and are afraid to lose any of it. By the second generation, all is wiped out and forgotten.
Money is needed (yes, it is needed) as a means of exchange for value, but itself is not worth much. It is not worth living for, and it is not worth dying for. It is not worth your family, friendships, esteem, or your health. It is a means of acquiring value, transferring value, transporting value. Value is the substance, money is the means. So if at the end of the dance, one is left holding on to cash, and only cash, it has been a pointless exercise, and waste of good music. Set up a value system that money can serve, as it exchanges value from one level to another, instead of setting up a money system, where the main point is to make money, and then make some more. It destroys people, families, legacies, and nations -eventually.
A simple and common way to express this thought is to go acquire real estate, buying up property with money. What is the cost of a plot of land? Can you tell me? You'd say it depends on where. It could be 40 thousand here and 40 million there. And the latter may not be as good or well situated as the former. Actually land, like the best things in life, is both free and priceless. The price tag on it does not tell us its value, but its man-made cost. That is a simple way of expressing the thought behind the economy of value, but such an economy system goes beyond real estate. It does not merely acquire land; it mobilizes value and improves the quality of life for the next generation. It makes the world a much better place to live in, all things considered; a thing only achievable where money is removed from the reason-for-all-things position in the equation of life, and placed where it should be, as one of the main parameters in the service of value.
If I paid a certain amount of money to educate my child, I would not equate the value of that education to the fees paid. I won't say my child had a 40 million or a 60 million education. The value of my child's education cannot be expressed in monetary terms, even though it was purchased at a particular amount. Educating my child has a value of its own that is very different from what it cost. So it is with everything of value in life. Money represents an accurate estimation of COST, but a rough estimation, and sometimes very rough, of VALUE.
Cost and value bear a certain relationship, but there is sometimes a whole world of difference. They are related to the extent that the more valuable a thing is, the costlier it should be. However value is an intrinsic quality and has several determinants and characteristics which money cannot measure. Something may bear heavy cost and be of little value and quite useless, whilst another thing may bear light cost and prove invaluable. Money therefore has a poverty when it comes to value, by virtue of its own lack of value, and the key is to separate these two, in the pursuits of life.
Therefore the lesson is to put value where value belongs, and money where money belongs. Money is useful therefore, not valuable. Certain things are valuable, but money is not one of them. Money is used to mobilize those things, and there it should end. It should not be at the centre of our endeavors nor the reason for rising early or sitting up late. Although very useful for the exchange of value, we must not get carried away to the point where we defocus from things of actual value and usurp their place by making money itself the reason for everything. It turns the course of society upside down. That is the lesson.
It is a very important lesson. It makes us never give up something of quality for the sake of money, something like honesty or a calling. It is the difference between ambition and vision, making money and serving a purpose, competition and innovation, the need to meet up with status and the simplicity of personal satisfaction. A thing which if understood, will change the world. It requires us to go for what is expedient, not what is imminent and pressing on us, with or without value. It requires us to go for what will outlast us instead of what will announce us. It gives us the freedom to make choices over what actually is, than what only seems to be. It considers posterity as a true measure of prosperity, by placing personal aggrandizement second to nation building. We are safe where value is the reason, but where money is the reason…..everything falls apart. In slow motion.
Placing value on things that are actually valuable, and letting money serve those things gives rise to a value system. When on the other hand, value is placed on money, having money, and making money; the value of things that actually have value decreases, sometimes to the point of insignificance. That is called a money system. In a money system, I could sacrifice honesty or integrity, the goal is to make money. I could buy beauty, or seek to sell sensitive information. It is the reason for every dirty and unsavory cut-throat event that occurs in the business world.
The reason why we have a failed state is that it operates a money system instead of a value system. Say politics and money comes to mind. A friend who gets a political appointment is perceived as one connected not to leadership, nor nation building, but one connected to money, and one who would soon become very rich. At the back of the rush for government projects and contracts is little to do with the passion for nation building. The main deal is that at every junction along such business is the opportunity for money to be gained. That is a money system. While it may be obvious that such a system is partly the reason for a failed state, it mightn’t readily be seen that on a personal level, it equally gives rise to failure.
If one wants to have a lot of money and it is to be meaningful eventually, one would have to have a lot of value, and get money to work it. Like a business with one worker, which as it expands gets more workers. Or a house with servants. The wealthy men today, and from time, get to a point where they give out almost all the money they have, and make even more in no time. They operate, not a money system, but a value system. Like a servant, they send money around; and it comes back. Those who have obtained riches otherwise, even though they now have the means to make wealth, find it extremely difficult because they do not understand value. They have to hold on to what they have rather tenaciously, and are afraid to lose any of it. By the second generation, all is wiped out and forgotten.
Money is needed (yes, it is needed) as a means of exchange for value, but itself is not worth much. It is not worth living for, and it is not worth dying for. It is not worth your family, friendships, esteem, or your health. It is a means of acquiring value, transferring value, transporting value. Value is the substance, money is the means. So if at the end of the dance, one is left holding on to cash, and only cash, it has been a pointless exercise, and waste of good music. Set up a value system that money can serve, as it exchanges value from one level to another, instead of setting up a money system, where the main point is to make money, and then make some more. It destroys people, families, legacies, and nations -eventually.
A simple and common way to express this thought is to go acquire real estate, buying up property with money. What is the cost of a plot of land? Can you tell me? You'd say it depends on where. It could be 40 thousand here and 40 million there. And the latter may not be as good or well situated as the former. Actually land, like the best things in life, is both free and priceless. The price tag on it does not tell us its value, but its man-made cost. That is a simple way of expressing the thought behind the economy of value, but such an economy system goes beyond real estate. It does not merely acquire land; it mobilizes value and improves the quality of life for the next generation. It makes the world a much better place to live in, all things considered; a thing only achievable where money is removed from the reason-for-all-things position in the equation of life, and placed where it should be, as one of the main parameters in the service of value.
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