Where do we lose our sense of intrinsic worth? And why do we?

How did we come to orient on utility? Why did we come to care about what use a thing is? About what use a person is?

I think we start to care about utility when we are doing without.

Capitalism is all utility.

The one strongest contributor to happiness, is gratitude, but what gratitude can we really feel if what we accept in trade has no instinctive, intrinsic worth? Did your mother buy your love? Could she have really?

I think she tries to everyday by doing things for me. Human insecurity. Trading in favours as most people do today is a bad market, poor investment. She had your love before she felt she lost it didn’t she?

I do appreciate everything she does even though she drives me crazy at times. Insecure people can be very disturbing at times.

She’s not very affectionate. It’s the way she shows her love. Why isn’t she affectionate? Why do parents come to be that way?

Personality. Also as a teacher they are told not to hug or touch students. Personality is one of those labels. I offer that we have little sense of each others personality. Is an infant unaffectionate? They don’t differ much on a fundamental level. They know only one thing, hold to your care giver, and not even quite like that. Hugging and affection seeking is instinctive. We have to learn to abandon it. Our cats, vicious meat eating predators that they are, seek affection from my wife and I, and we aren’t even their species. Inter-species affection is not even rare, to the point where sacrificial behaviour can even occur, no training required. What does require training is defense. Young animals have to be trained by their mothers to look out for threats, and in what to do should they detect one.

Perhaps we are too far off base here. Has this described intrinsic value at all?

There is value in other people. To the point where people is a general concept. Doggies are people, kitties, anything living and moving, even anything suggestive of a people.

Even plants if you have affection for them. If the tree looks vaguely like it has a face, yes. Children are taught rather easily to value animals and plants. They can understand it instinctively if they are given the chance.

I find I develop affection for anything I am taking care of. Ah indeed, so care taking, an activity with intrinsic worth. There is nothing my wife has to talk me into doing for her. To be honest, I still have something of a starving dog mentality when it comes to emotional considerations in my life. A harsh social environment for the majority of my life has left it’s scars, so I am not inclined to be free giving as a matter of day to day activity. Too much has taught me the error of that attitude except my wife behaves in such a way that I have to reframe everything. My whole context goes out the window. Does it ever feel like you are doing a sort of mental math when you interact with your friends or loved ones? Measure what to do or say and how much. How far to take it?

Yes, but I hate that. It feels really neurotic. And naturally you should hate it. My wife behaves in such a way that ever bit of my mental math tells me of a positive outcome, or at the very least a neutral outcome. I can’t find any exceptions. It’s not because I am ignoring them. Another one of my issues is a deep seated rage. I have an oath of sorts to myself that I would ignore no negativity in others. I had been surprised much too frequently. My wife never surprises me, and in that she surprises me.

Your relationships shape your experience of life. Life is not all relative. Nothing depends on your singular point of view. Everything depends on the points of view of everyone you are in contact with, including yourself. Are you happy?

When I choose happiness, yes. No. I’m not just trying to be contradictory. Happiness is an abstract notion especially when we think about it as a choice we make. You are indeed happy sometimes.

When I choose to feel “groovy,” then I can usually make it happen. Well indeed, you can choose to release issues, release problems, be mellow, but that isn’t happiness.

Yes, un-attach stuff that really doesn’t belong to me anyway.

Happiness is the experience of sympathy. Synchrony. We are happy when we feel at one with life, not ideas, but with the presence of life around us. Happiness is petting a beloved dog, or having a relaxed and easy conversation with a friend. Happiness is the sense that value is unbroken, implicate, intrinsic, and we have an instinct for this. Our intuition can guide us toward more and more of it.

I ponder “intuition.” Intuition in this case is implicate comprehension.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~