The Collection of One

The value of a Life is often assigned to the material value of one’s accumulated collection.  The material far outweighs the spiritual, intellectual or character of a being.  We weigh the gravity of a loss of life by the height of a person’s accomplishment rather than the value of their life’s works.  When one stops to think, does the value of an actor creating cinematic joy for a fleeting moment in time and a truck driver delivering food to a grocery store for an entire career stack up the same?  One feeds you for a moment in time, while the other is responsible for your literal daily bread.  Does the playing of a sport bring more value to a society than the therapist who spends their life in the effort of mending fences and broken hearts?  In this world, our value is based on jealously, we elevate those which we most want to be like.  We do so in the breath of admiration and hatred.  Is there really much difference between the person who idealizes the vocal pro athlete for their ability to shoot a jump shot versus the one who villainize the same athlete for the same reason.  We envy the influence and the seemingly perfect way that they employ those skills.  It is the superficial or shallow end of character that we praise and seek to emulate.

So, what is the value of a life?  I believe the answer to this question to be the word immense.  We all have value that will echo well beyond our mortal time here on earth.  From those that we have loved, taught, helped, and listened to.  We leave with them a portion of who we are and what we stand for.  In return, we are blessed with the same from them.  In the words of John Donne:

No man is an island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

 

I believe the true beauty of life is found in how uniquely connected we are.  If society grows in one direction, we all as a matter of course follow suit to varying degrees.  And in the same manner, when we lose a member of society, we are all lessened to some degree.  “If a clod is washed away by the seam Europe is the less.”  Our value is not determined by our rank on a societal hierarchy or by the perfection that we express on social media outlets, but rather by the hearts that we touch and the people that we uplift.  You matter, the small acts of inclusion and love that you express radiate and touch the throngs of society. 

He drew a circle that shut me out

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

Edwin Markham

 

In a world caught up in division and anger, choose this day to be inclusive.  We need not fear our lack of voice.  We should not raise what little voice we have in anger towards their actions of another.  And we certainly need not follow the loud voices of a few and their bully pulpits.  But rather draw a circle that takes them in.  The difference between society and segregation is found in the collective strength of the smallest voices.  You matter, we all matter, society is less without you.  It all begins with being vulnerable, with accepting the things that we fear and the things that we don’t understand.  It is in that moment you become weightless, it is in that moment that you truly know:  FREEDOM.