What’s Important

The more one gets to know people in Hawaii, the more one is amazed at what each thinks is important. For some, it is not spending any money at all -- as their ultimate value, which is achieved of course, whenever they can get something for nothing. That “deal” is often not the best, but if something for nothing is the only criteria, that is the only thing that matters to such people -- regardless of whether it is what they truly want or need. It might be the source of all their problems, but if the money is free no matter how much one has to destroy themselves to obtain it, that is their only measure of “success.”

The opposite, is to spend as much as possible -- regardless of whether one gets any value at all from that expenditure, because the spending of the money, is the value in itself, and the highest attainment, is to waste as much money as possible -- and get nothing of value in return.

Rather than being the opposite, they are two faces of the same coin -- which is not to exchange value for value, and therefore, to believe that there is no such thing as value, other than getting an unfair exchange of either type.

Both are disastrous in that one never learns the fair value of anything -- and that some things are good, better, and worse. To these, only the lopsidedness of an unfair exchange, is what appeals to them. If they play any game or sports, their objective is to gain an unfair advantage -- as what it means to win. Thus the most ruthless and unscrupulous, are highly favored in such events -- and the trick then, is to convince everybody else, that it is the only game in town, and everybody must play it, even if they have no chance of winning.

In the old days, most people were convinced that whatever the “authorities” told them (usually their teachers), was the only game in town, and that was that they were the unquestioned authorities and deserved to be elevated and rewarded more than anybody else. Often it was not because they worked harder and better than anybody else, but because they no longer had to do any work at all -- as proof that they had reached the highest pinnacle of the socioeconomic pyramid.

Such hierarchies were fashionable many centuries ago before the revolutions of the 19th century liberated people all over the world. A few still wish to restore the monarchy and that sociopolitical hierarchy, as their idea of a fair and just society for themselves permanently and exclusively at the top.

What’s puzzling are the many “liberals” and “progressives” who think that is a wonderful idea -- not unlike their idea that if all the people in the world were eliminated, the world would be so much a better place.