Value is strange, no? It isn't real, but just as it is determined by humanity, it also determines how humanity will act. Fear, greed, judgement, comparison are all born out of value, even though it is relative.
In today's world, it seems the media has no time to explore depth. Hence the extreme importance placed on packaging, image, facade. The storefront of our world hides the turmoil within. Discord develops along with broken people. Where is reality? Who is Britney Spears?
Value is flattening. When a cost is placed on something, it becomes a commodity. It is spoken of as though all it were was that cost. Money, something intended only to hold value in the interest of making trade more efficient, has become all people see. People are in general so focussed on amassing more value, they do anything but. They collect, they exploit, they greedily look for every way to take advantage in order to get more money.
When was the last time you thought about the people who make the goods you buy or provide the services you use? They are selling their LIFE to you, as you are to those who pay you in your job.
We need to appreciate PEOPLE, not the value they create for us to take. I'm lucky in that, firstly, I get to do what I enjoy, and secondly, I usually get appreciation for what I do. I get to feel connected to the goodness in people. It is there. Behind the ever thickening facade created by societal value lie suffering, broken real people.
Where has your real gone?
Peace.
Buy Now - Tom Waits 09/30/08
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2 comments:
great post! "where has your real gone?" I'll be remembering that one. (I'm a huge Tom Waits fan...AND a huge Miles Davis fan, and while reading the previous entry, I was thinking "well duh, of COURSE those ones are going to sell out!) :-)
I like the art you do. back in the day, you probably would have had a lucrative career as a picture disc designer (if you could lower yourself to work for the image & facade creators of packaging). What you say about the value placed on the package is the other side of the coin to what I think about packaging. though they would appear to, somehow I don't see the 2 views as opposing. rather, complimentary. because oftentimes the content doesn't deliver on the promises the packaging made. but sometimes it does. sometimes the packaging is art, and sometimes it's a disposable piece of propaganda or an exercise in false advertising. and sometimes I ramble and stop making sense...
thanks for visiting (and commenting). curious - how did you stumble upon my blog?
Thanks for visiting/reading/thinking/commenting!
I found you through that post about yours and your dad's records somehow searching Google's blog search.
Your ramble does make sense! It demonstrates the reason for the breakdown in trust between producers and consumers. Science models reality. Language filters and communicates that model. Reality isn't even in the discussion anymore, just the model. Packaging is kind of like a model of the product, a plastic description that can be communicated with some language, verbal or visual or whatever. The product isn't in the discussion anymore, just the packaging. So producers end up selling the packaging. If the packaging is a bad model for the product then when consumers buy the packaging and don't get what they expect, the relationship and trust are broken.
So sometimes people end up liking the packaging more than the product! The "art" does become the package, the content lost.
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