Value
Have you ever thought about value and how peculiar it is?
It is so funny to think that value is in the eye of the beholder. Nothing is intrinsically valuable. Value is always relational and the relation is between a person, their conditioning and some aspects of the world shared with others. Value is situational, transitory but also shared.
If we consider ourselves to be an attentional locus with some tool for engaging with the world - a body, we fall in a dualistic thinking. We are existing through our bodies and the valuation of everything around us depends on the shape of the body. Usually that is a pretty strong filter for discerning between valuable and less valuable objects. Our body depends on the intake of certain things and those become valuable for us.
The conditioning of a person has also a lot to do with their body. It is the way we walk, or more generally move. It is also in the way their thoughts move both on paper and in a conversation. The conditioning includes the habits of a person and it is a separate thing from the person only in theory. It is factually the underlying reality of that person and it is objectively more real than the person. This is because the conditioning can be manipulated from others. We can push our buttons so to speak and we can with a degree of certainty anticipate the responses of others. This is also why value is connected with the conditioning.
The externality of value can be manifested in the shape of the things we value. It is the layer shared with others but which is also more distant than the self. This layer includes all the products and services in the world and is usually to be found in some sort of marketplace. Although the marketplace could be a metaphor for the whole sphere of objective possessions.
When you go about your day appreciate that value is so nuanced and don't fall into rigidity!