There are the deniers, the liars, the adherents and the extremists, and at the heart sits the question: "what is the added value?" It strikes me (yet again) that climate change issues closely mirror the debate of life; it is global, impacts everyone, and is fully dependent on our choices - past, present, and future.
Events at work have made me think hard about added value in my science and in my life. I know people who live with all sorts of shortcomings - be they scientists or not - that range from debilitating Aspergers through to debilitating pride, and the deep question that seems to haunt them most often is: "what value my life, what value my actions?" For myself, one of my struggles has been around the question of added value in life and work. Emerging from a childhood of bullying and insecurity, like a pendulum I swung to the extreme of a façade of confidence and assumption. Projected confidence can take one a long way, but it does not change the insecurity hiding inside. It is only in the latter part of my career that my external confidence become connected to an internal understanding of the value of my work and self. Why, I still ask, when a simple act that takes only 10% effort and gets me 90% of the solution, do I still want to expend 90% effort to get 91% of the answer. The answer is rooted in the temptation of the potential added value; it is prideful insecurity mostly. If I build a more complicated equation, it must be more important. If I dress more fashionably, I'll be better liked. If I work harder, I'll be more effective. If I do more, I'll find more value. That's rubbish; the real problem is that usually I'm not asking the right questions, and that I'm not objectively assessing value. "Added value" is a very complicated phrase. Consider (I mean that ... really consider) these questions about the values we hold about self, activities, accomplishments, and life.
The real BIG question is: do I focus on adding value (focus on what I do), or on being value (focus on what I am)? If I focus on what I do, I need to know the value of my ambitions. If I focus on what I am, I need to know the value of who I am - and that is a problem because I see myself with a jaundiced eye. If I focus on only the doing, I'll never know the being. If I focus on the being, then the doing will logically follow. Sometimes I have to pick it apart in order to put it back together in a way I can understand. I propose a few realities (that are real to me): If value is merely my determination, it is ultimately valueless. If I refuse to accept what I acknowledge as value, then I deny truth. If I fight against accepting what is valuable, I fight against myself. If I cannot accept objective value, I cannot find peace. Value that is extrinsic complements the value that is intrinsic - and the intrinsic value is the hardest to accept (especially when it is about me). Throughout the ages people have spoken helpfully of value. Many times it is merely nice sounding nonsense, but occasionally truth is gleaned. Here are some that I have found to be provocative to think about. You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself. Marcus Tullius Cicero (c.106 BC-c.43 BC, Roman philosopher, statesman, and political theorist) Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. Epicurus (c.341 BC-c.270 BC, Greek philosopher) Know thyself. Plato (c.427 BC-c.347 BC, Greek philosopher) Men [and woman] often are valued high, when they are most wretched. John Webster (1580-1632, English writer and playwright) The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, English writer) Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another. Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794, French philosopher, mathematician, and political scientist) He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others. William Hazlitt (1778-1830, English writer) Value your words. Each one may be the last. Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966, Polish poet and aphorist) It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. Roy Disney (American Film Writer, Producer, Nephew of Walt Disney) In the C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, the old professor says, ‘It’s all in Plato’ — meaning that the world around us is a crude, shabby, imperfect, second-rate copy of something much better. I find that this perspective greatly helps my sense of values; true value is extrinsic to this world, and defines the intrinsic values of self, action, and outcome. If it didn't, then what is value in this world but an expression of personal preference. The logical consequence is that value is not what I momentarily like or want. While I fight the extrinsic and intrinsic values, I am at war with myself and the world; when I accept them I find a peace with who and what I and the world are.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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