Duality Trap: Estimating Worth

What happens after a large hurricane like Rita or Katrina? The insurers all go out and assess the damage to estimate the millions or, in this case, billions of dollars worth of claims. In fact, the insurers are good mirrors for how we, in a capitalistic system, view our own ideas of self-worth. If it has a dollar value, we think it's worthy. The problem comes where all our material possessions are destroyed and then we find ourselves estimating ourselves as "worthless."

I find my own inclinations towards this philosophy in my day to day actions. I have been wondering for a time why I haven't spent as much time painting or drawing for a number of years. As a child, I couldn't be kept away from these activities and now, I watch my daughter at play this way and can't seem to motivate myself to explore that playfulness within me. There are several reasons I decided that are affecting this creation. I have some belief systems that affect what I create.

The first is that if I create something that is "imperfect" in my own estimation, that I have wasted my valuable time. In some respects, the currency in my life is time and I have put a monetary figure on it. For my time to be meaningfully spent, I assume that my creation has to come out as I intend it to. Thus, anything that does not create a perfect objective creation is not worth doing. I limit the freedom of my own self-expressions.

Oddly, we've been studying genes in my child development class and I've been arguing for the allowance of "defective genes" in a gene pool otherwise we would limit our ability to withstand harmful environmental factors that we as yet can't forsee. We would ultimately weaken the specie's gene pool through selective genetic breeding for "perfect" individuals. Somehow, I don't view my own creations as perfect little children, though, do I? It is humorous how all our day to day actions often address the same belief systems from different directions!

The second belief system that interferes with my artistic expressions, I noticed, was the idea that I have to pay for supplies and on my limited income, my only hope is to sell these creations to be able to support my hobby. So, I attend craft fairs (which are free) to figure out how other artists are doing it. And I realize, they make art out of things I have lying around the house that are basically "free." Art can be made from dog droppings, if one were inclined in that direction! So, the supply issue is moot. The other issue of selling my art indicates to me that I again evaluate worth with money. When I begin to appreciate my creations for the very act of self-expression, as I once did as a child, then I begin to open that wellspring of inspiration that makes my self-esteem rise and my self-worth increase! And I begin to shift my beliefs so that these things are not associated with money in the least!

The more I begin to understand that my world is created by no one other than myself, the more I want to explore those hidden dimensions of Self that hold immense worth, not in money, but in how I express myself in my own life and how that is mirrored around me. My freedom is not limited by money, nor by opportunity, nor by the acts of others. My freedom is only limited by the allowance I give myself to express myself fully within my own world and to appreciate and value my Self as Divine.