Now that is a tricky question. If you are in a hurry to go somewhere I will reveal the answer here, but if you have spared few minutes, I invite you to continue reading to why?
The most valuable thing in the world is the knowledge of valuelessness.
Positive Value of a Pot in Ancient China.
Let's build our arguments here. Let's go into the Ancient China. Imagine you are a potter. You sit in the morning with freshly prepared clay to Mould some pots. The pots are valuable to you. Not only to you they are valuable to Chinese people. So, they come and buy some quality pots from you. Your pots are made so perfect that even they are sold to the palace. But as the potter your family is more valuable to you. So is your and their hunger, and their protection. So, if the pots are more valuable to you than your family, you would have sold your family and kept the pots. Yet you do the other way around. So is the hunger, and you spend some money to buy a house for shelter and buy some food.
What is more valuable Food or clothes?
Food is more valuable than cloths, right? If you ask our ancestors, they will tell. Would you rather die with cloths or live without cloths, and without hunger? Now, that is a difficult and unfair question to ask from you as you have both. Obviously if you are reading this. In real life, we would never face such extremes of choices. Do not forget that we passed the era of Auschwitz and even today such souls are not rare in different corners of the world who face such choices. Maybe it's not hunger and cloths, but hunger and medicine, hunger and education.
Negative Value of a broken Pot.
Going back to our little pot shop, the buyer has now value in your pot. For him his money is less valuable than the pot he is buying. That is why he agrees to the trade. Later he might think that he has paid too much for your pot, but at the exact moment he decides to buy, he has more 'value' or 'need' for the pot than the money he is paying. So, it is not the money which gives the 'value' to the pot. The value is generated by the need. If you want to know more about how the values are generated, read the following article on the topic. Either way, let's imagine the pot is gone to some house and after being used for a couple of weeks the pot is broken. The little child in the house, let it fall on the floor and it breaks into three pieces. It still has all the intricate drawings on its surface. It has the same amount of material in it. And even you could keep them together if you glued it, to make it look like a complete pot. Yet for the people in the house the pot has no value now. It is thrown out of the house as it might hurt the children, who like to run inside the home. You can call it has a negative value now.
A valueless pot
After some time, years and decades and centuries, even millennia go by, when everyone forgets about the broken pot. During this period of time the pot did not have any value. You could call it zero, why? Let's keep the question in mind as why it is valueless in this period of time, which will be answered later.
Highest value of the Pot
Archeologists while digging up ancient ruins dig up the pieces, with great care and utmost respect, they took it out in the museum and restored, pasted the three pieces together and dated it back to 2000 years to the exact location and emperor. It is the most preserved pot from that era, and with most delicate details of the flowery decorations. Most precious item in the entire pottery history. Now if we look at the value of the pot, I will say it has gone through the rooftop. If the potter lived today, he even would be amazed. Yes! exactly, can you remember, that you are the potter in our story. So, if I ask you now knowing all the story what is the value of the pot can you point out? No, you would not, as it was changing you would need more details. You would need at what time, which society and more importantly in whose mind? Now that is strange right? We can exactly trace the value of the pot to a specific mind, in specific person's thoughts but is it true for everything? That is for you to think about. As the story doesn't end there, I need to drag you to another step forward. If the values were not in the pot itself, what was the true value of the pot? What was the inherent value of the pot at any stage? It is zero, right? or no value. Did you see the valuelessness of the pot? It was only apparent when we think about the time when the pot was not recognized by any human being. From the time it was thrown away, to the time it was re discovered. It had no value as there was no thinking associated with the pot. Knowing this little truth about our values helps us to understand the world better. And It is the most valuable thing in the world.
Now you can think and expand.
What is the value of the wind?
What is the value of a tree?
What is the value of a phone?
What is the value of SpaceX?
What is the value of a road?
What is the value of a life?
What is the value of a soul?
What is the value of you?
If you have followed the arguments properly, now you possess the most valuable knowledge about valuelessness of the world.
Comments