let me believe

i am dialoguing with a soul via text on the nature of worth. i know, i'm so not a texter. it's awkward, weird, words like conflagration come out of me while texting and it takes a lifetime to say that in a text.

but i've decided we none of us know our worth. believe it deep down.

or at least i've never met anyone who does. it would be something to see.

the question at hand is, how do i value what i know completely, the frailties and flaws of. the hypocrisies and lies. how do i not take that into account and not devalue what there is (for truly all i see are the detractions).

then i hear the tearing into self, so common with me. as if my mind were speaking aloud, only it is not me, it is another devaluing self. and i have to draw the distinction between what is and what is not a determiniant of value.

if i say, i'm only worth, say $5, is that it? is that the end of the argument. no, i don't think so because i have come to believe value is based on what another soul is willing to pay. economics aside, i'm talking, what are you worth to me? what am i worth to you? it's hard to slap a label on that, hard to take the economics of the situation out of the equation and just get down to, what do you value yourself at? what do i value myself at?

not easy questions and ones i find myself strangely preoccupied with of late.

value is hard to guage.

sometimes we think we've got a good value (economics completely at play now), and find we've only put off for the briefest moment needing to repurchase or replace that bargain basement item.

sometimes we think we've got the most exceptional deal and paid a heavy price but that thing breaks, is as fragile as the tag holding the priceline in sight. i don't know why it works or how. why some things command a steeper price.

all i know is the sum i'm willing to pay for something often has very little to do with economics. has more to do with some felt need of the thing. something to do with my living with or without a thing. i determined this before i moved out on my own.

i will live without a thing until i cannot live without it anymore.

that has been my rule. that has been my mantra. partly because i'm lazy, but mostly because i desire nothing. i want nothing. i have all i need and there is no lack.

there are occasions when i cut my finger and have to run out for a bandaid, but that is utilitarian and people can hardly be called utilitarian by any stretch of the imagination. we do not love because we are making sound judgments or finding use for someone (as if they were a some thing). we love because we love amen.

see how my mind has bent around this subject. it's all contorted there and i've still no grasp of it, no clear understanding of all the factors being scrutinized at the moment.

all i can say is, we do not know our own worth.

heaven help us, sometimes it falls to others to help us see who we are, what we are worth.

may those souls be gracious and generous.

for truly, we do not know, cannot begin to estimate our value.