A value is derived ultimately from either an internal or an external source. While in actuality most motivators consist of a messy hybrid of the two, a single overriding authority will nonetheless tend to dominate every human decision.
People generally survive on some combination of externally and internally oriented values. On one hand, some modicum of practical, externally based validation and cultural awareness seems reasonable. To exist in any functional economy, for instance, requires a person to be in some way concerned with externally based values.
However, to depend principally upon the validation of outside opinions or forces is not only unhealthy, it is dangerous. Regarding the artist and his or her artistic work, this tendency is simply a contradiction in terms. The ultimate motivation and validation of the true artist approaching the creative product begins and ends internally.
For my part, I refuse to understand an individual’s belief system as existing separate from his or her track record of actions. When a person continually professes to believe something in contravention to what he or she actively incarnates, that person is either lying or simply doesn’t understand he or she actually believes. However imperfectly, internal value is evidenced in the life of the individual over time.
It is in the worst moments, under turmoil and duress, that an individual’s truest values are evidenced. Particularly here, what I am is truly what I believe. I have also come to hold the notion that adamance alone can assign incredible meaning and value to a thing, and even to a life. Macroscopically, the adamance of lone individuals has repeatedly altered the course of world events.
Money is also a signifier of value. I have heard artists dismiss money as corrupt, and cash remains a popular scapegoat for a variety of human concerns. However, currency is simply a reflection of collective value, a placeholder, a mirror – and what it reflects in the end is its respective user’s particular values. In fact, money’s only significance derives ultimately from our collective belief in its worth. In this sense, money is perhaps the chief example of an externally based value.
Money is simply a tool, not an end in itself but a means to something else. It doesn’t make sense for money to be worshiped or despised, just as it doesn’t make sense to hate a hammer for its inclusion in some crime. Money is amoral, and remains subject to the values of its masters. And while money is an important feature of human economy, it is crucial to remember that to base one’s values on money alone is to base them on an external and therefore an ephemeral source.
The real value of money is what it can do to improve our lives, whatever that really means to each of us. Money allows the greater potential engineering of desirable situations, but it remains the individual’s responsibility to execute moral decisions directing this instrument. As with philosophy, a misunderstanding or ignorance of money will tend to lead to an unfortunate shift toward the lowest common contextual denominator.
It can also be difficult when one's values are based principally upon internal motivators that do not translate conveniently to outside initiatives. For instance, an individual who carries a true passion for the art of real estate investment will likely need to worry less about additional income then someone following a passion for experimental sculpture. For these latter individuals in particular, the reality and consequences of one's values remains very present.
For a variety of reasons, the older we get the more our real values tend to become actualized. Time allows our choices the opportunity to incarnate and compound exponentially, and the results of our truest values grow increasingly evident as days stretch to years. The values people command seem far more real to me now then they used to, in large part because I’ve had the opportunity to witness what various philosophies do to real lives.
We all have only the time and space for a relatively limited set of real priorities, and it seems that significant value in our lives over time can only be achieved through the deliberate act of searching out these real priorities and actively placing them at the forefront of our daily choices. Emerson cautioned “Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” No, we can’t worry about the path; if we're on a path, it's likely we may already be lost. Instead, we can only move toward a greater discovery of what each of us truly values, and then strive to live and to remain involved with those people, things, activities, and ideas.
