Worth

today, i was talking to peijun. she was saying something about a birthday present, so i asked her if it was true if we actually get it for "free"? well, i dun think so. actualy, i sorta got thinking about this after reading this article. hmm...makes me think, actually not that everything can be bought but that everything does actually have a price. the thing here is what is the price, the worth of something? umm, if you've already read the article, the way i think of it, is not in the context of the article. like for the birthday present, in a sense, it was "paid" for by the time spent together, what you bought for your friend on her birthday? (hmm...ok, i can already hear the protests...) but then i think it's quite true that there is a value attched to it. Like if it's a good friend, you would have a bigger budget and a smaller one or none at all for an aquaintance.

So, i was wondering, if humans are so pragmatic, perhaps we do place a value, a price on people too? If i don't remember wrongly, Jennifer Lopez insured her posterior for a hefty sum. Insurance companies have a way of "valuing" people based on a certain set of criteria, such as your genetic make-up.

In society too, people are "valued". If you are the president or the CEO of a company, you are definitely "worth" more, people will view you as more important and consequentially, that affects the way they treat and view you. I am not only referring to boot-lickers or apple-polishers only. Just like the way you treat your teachers and your friends would be different. So likewise, the pariah of society are probably viewed as unimportant to society, perhaps even as a burden. Like people will discriminate against those who are different, whether in terms of behaviour or apprearance. So is one's worth measured by how much one can contribute to society? Much as I would like to say otherwise, but as far as I can think, historically and currently, it seem that the old and sick are often viewed as a burden, like in Japan, where the population is rapidly aging, there are increased cases of abuse of the elderly. In certain tribes, the old and sick are often alone to die.

Reality is stark, much as humans love to idealise, but utopia does not exist, at least not on the surface of this earth, as far as i know. Frightening to know that everything does seem to have a price tag attached, whether monetary of otherwise. We take, but we give back too, to society. We may have progressed technogically, but have we progressed humanitarianly?