VALUE FOR MONEY

When I think about feeling valued, it is about my day to day relations with the people I care about and the people I am surrounded by, oh and of course myself! That’s number one. I suppose on a grander scale I don’t recall feeling overly valued at any point, economically or politically. This is coming from someone who has a career in the arts, an industry that is vastly undervalued.

When I do feel valued, it’s primarily when an individual shares time and presence with me. And conversation, a desire to understand me. The more inquisitive the more valued i feel I would say. However even seemingly surface day to day banter does suffice :) I think it’s mostly about time and presence.

On another level I feel valued as a dancer or performer when I am trusted in a physical or practical way and when I feel heard, particularly when my voice is heard.

I had an experience with an employer where I felt that my body or my ‘labour’ as a performer was indeed valued, yet I didn’t feel valued as a human from that same person. They didn’t seem to have any time for me. This kind of exacerbated my feelings of being undervalued. I don’t think you can separate ‘human’ from dancer but it certainly felt like that was happening. It felt like a very transactional kind of relationship. I guess it stirred up feelings around body politics which are totally interlinked with my heritage and the story that goes with that.

Physical proximity makes a great deal of difference in relation to value. It seems to me that it makes sense to value those around you/ in close proximity or your community members, those of the land you reside on and with, before extending out to others you don’t personally know. That’s not to say undervaluing those at a distance is a good idea! In an ideal world you could do it all. But I have witnessed some great dysfunction and harm done in those situations where value has been placed far beyond an immediate circumstance but then not at all to those of the immediate community. It makes a lot of sense to value and care for yourself, and those around you first, and then from there it can ripple outward beyond that to further lands or to greater numbers.

Proximity is interesting to dissect though, because I actually have family who are proximally far away from me, in the Philippines, but who are as much inside me as my friends and family here. I value them deeply too. Proximity of the heart is something else I suppose.

When I consider vulnerability and power in this context I think about money for sure. The sad fact that those with a lot of money in this world seem to hold nearly all of the power and decision making, over those with less money. Placing perimeters around how a life can be lived, what kind of education can be accessed, what kind of real empowering health knowledge can be shared. I think about my Filipino family and the struggles that come with their vulnerable position, living in a third world and colonised country. Hard labour and very little hope of having an easy life.

Of course though there is power and vulnerability of a different kind. Many of those with very little monetary power, or control over their external lives have that internal power too. I mean I think this is the greater power at the end of the day. The one that can’t be touched by anyone or any situation, I mean like a liberated being. But not everyone is so fortunate to have that level of realisation are they. And whilst I do believe work on this level is most important, and would naturally lead to work on the external too. We definitely need to address this disparity issue.

On the flip there’s a definite kind of vulnerability in those with a lot of political power and money, using it for selfish gain also, as they have everything to lose, and it seems they hold very tightly to these things that make them feel secure. I do feel sad when I think about a person like that. I can’t imagine it’s a very fulfilling kind of life.

WHEN I CONSIDER VULNERABILITY AND POWER I THINK OF...the way in which they are co-dependent and reliant on one another. The elevation of a person or people into positions of power inherently requires there to be a population vulnerable enough that someone feels the need to take charge. If we had properly supported and empowered societies, power could be more of a shared concept rather than a top down structure. The power to decide what is good for another person, beyond your scope of lived or understood experience is a huge responsibility that is so often tainted by any one individual’s desire to be seen as powerful or to have status within a community or communities of people. It is a dangerous and flawed perception of the responsibility of care, which is ultimately what we expect our leaders and those who are in positions of power to be doing. Vulnerability is exploited, people are kept vulnerable through disparate access to basic requirements such as safe places to live, education, freedom from persecution on the grounds of elements such as race, gender, or class. To educate and elevate all people would be to destabilise the white male dominant position of the all powerful in so many of our societies, and this endangers the way in which these people are valued or seen by the world, which causes them to do wild, reckless and atrocious things in the name of holding that power. 

As a white person with inherent privilege I recognise that the intersection between my own power and vulnerability is one in which the two elements don’t sit too far from one another. I am awarded a safety to move in between these two things because there isn’t a huge amount at stake for me if I more towards one than the other. I can in fact do so within the realms I occupy with great safety. It flaws me when I consider the probability of being born into the world I occupy, and how fucking wild it is that we a thrust into societies that have decided how safe, valuable or worth protecting and investing in we are. It is no one’s choice. We do not get to decide who we are when we enter the fray, but so quickly, we begin to feel the impacts of where powerful people have decided to invest in societies and this really fucks with so much of the possibility that lies within an individual. The fact that it is safe and appropriate for me to move between being vulnerable and being powerful and it it not safe or easy for a person who is a different skin colour or gender to me is a deep flaw in the ways we have flexed power over vulnerability. 

The closing lines of Deniss’ article have stayed with me, as I ponder on the power of the people to flip the script on vulnerability. Deomcratic elections place the power in the hands of the vulnerable, and make those who wield it the vulnerable ones. We the people, for a small but monumental time every 3 or 4 years have the power to destabilise these systems of oppression and inequality. Our collective will can bury those with the ambitious idea that they will rise to tell us what’s necessary and best. We are sold an idea of care that so often falls very very short of what we need to bring power and vulnerability into a more even kilter. BUT, we are apathetic and disbelieving in our collective power, so we don’t turn up. It may not be perfect but we have a chance to fuck it up every time, and SO often it is those who the system has worked for who benefit the most, who turn up to vote, thus continuing in perpetuity the kinds of people who are powerful and the kinds of people who are vulnerable. 

WE CANNOT have equity in power if those who are in the positions are not representative of a broad cross section of our society. We cannot have discussions about differing value systems, about how things should be done, if they are being held in echo chambers of privilege and experience. 

VULNERABILITY IS POWER. Go in to the spaces that scare us, it is where we learn, and when we learn, we have the ability to change the course of history.

This notion, this concept of assigning a currency value to human life, to any life, unsettles me to my core. It feels like a poison, an idea, a toxic idea, distilled from Capitalism, from Colonialism, from Patriarchy. Fuck you and your long list of “-isms”. Fuck you and that horse you rode in on, that high horse you get on from all the bullshit you were fed on.

Everything is Energy. Value is just different ways we attempt to measure and quantify energy. Energy of: time, work, effort, skills, love, mass, matter, resources etc. None of which is essential real or true. In essence these are all man-made constructs, our illusions understanding and control.

State security thrives on the illusion that we are all separate. I think even the notion of assigning the value to human life relies on this illusion. The success of human security relies on an overwhelming majority of people accepting the idea that we are not separate. The path to peaceGABE and true respect is recognising that we are all the same, we are one, we are energy, light and love.

Do human interpersonal relationships change value? It’s not what you know but who you know.. and how well. Familiarity increases the bond, and possibly the assigning of value.

Does our familiarity affect how/what value I assign to you and have an impact on my ability to make decisions regarding you?

I chose the provocation of I feel valued when….as I guess it felt like the one I can respond to in the most personal way, the easiest springboard to jump from to generate thoughts around my value and how that relates to myself and other people.  It’s also something that I don’t think about a lot so this exercise is a way for me to think deeply about that. The other provocations also felt slightly intimidating to me if I am going to be completely honest, like I would need my thoughts to be really intelligent or something, anyways here I am with the least intimidating provocation, being not intelligent, maybe a bit sometimes, but honest, and a dag as always. Fuck get going, I feel valued when I can provide for the people I love, emotionally, practically and logistically, I also feel valued when I can provide for people I don’t know, I feel valued when people call me or ask me out for a drink, I feel value when people confide in me and trust me, I feel valued when I make genius in the studio, or maybe not genius, but a solid offering to the process, I feel valued when people want a hug, when people feel safe around me, I feel valued when people don’t judge my flaws, and make space for my flaws, I feel valued when people gently let me know that I’ve fucked up, or could’ve done something better, I feel valued when people are honest with me, I feel valued when my friends check if I’m doing ok. I feel valued  to be a part of my whanau at Te Tikanga Rua Reo and when, after so many years, I am still called upon do to the karanga at a tangi or a powhiri, and being more aware of my whiteness now than ever this not only makes me feel valued but fucking blessed, I feel valued when I’m able to teach someone something, able to help Sandrine with her English, when the kids want to learn my really cool (probs not that cool) moves, I feel valued when someone wants to teach me, this is a big one I think, if someone wants to put effort into making me better, helping me learn more, be a better ally, make change in the world, I feel valued in that, someone sees the value in me being better and that is priceless, I feel valued when I make people laugh or smile, I feel valued when my partner wants sex, I fell valued when I feel needed, by people close to me or by strangers, I reckon one day I’ll feel super valued by my child but I don’t have one yet,  I feel valued when I offer a different perspective, I feel valued when I complete a task, whether it’s for myself or for someone else, I always give myself a mini hi five, I feel valued when my garden is growing happily, I feel valued when my dog is so excited when I get home she can’t stop shivering, I reckon there is heaps more things that I feel valued for, but right now I’m having a bit of a mind blank, so I’ll move on..

In reading some of those writings I guess I immediately felt a bit offended when I had an arbitrary dollar sign attached to my head of my value to the state,  I mean, I know my actual value is to the people around me, but it is slightly jarring to read about yourself in that way as a statistic, and just one of many, and that some lives are worth more in a monetary sense, essentially devalues our personalities or just us as people. Actual real deep personal value comes when you know someone, or know people, for the large quantities of the world of people that we don’t know it’s easy to see them as data, or figures, but as soon as there is a relationship there that person becomes a human and you can’t lump them into statistics, or try to give them a monetary value, because they’re a person…. Or like in terms of the virus, how much of ourselves and our emotion capacity do we give to a country that thousands of people are dying everyday, poverty is so super ever present and there is no help from the government, or do we give more of our thoughts to the less than 10 cases here a day, though concerning because we’ve seen where it‘s gone but on the scale of things a lot less damaging, but we give it more thoughts because it’s closer to home, it affects the people we know, the people we value more. Fuck imagine if we had the emotional capacity to give everyone, everyone animal, every object in the world equal value in our brains…it would be exhausting..

I mean it’s also interesting how we place our own emotions on things and how we choose to care for things. Or what we care for more, do you care for that chicken as much as you would care for a human, both have feelings, or that dying plant? Or that pencil sharpener? How much of yourself do you give over to these things, how much of your feelings do you think they deserve? I used to live between two bus stops, and I worry about which stop to get off at, I felt I shouldn’t use one more than the other, because I would feel sorry for the under used one standing proud just waiting for me to jump off at, it was the same distance and providing exactly the same service to me so why shouldn’t it be used as well? I made myself switch between, I mean is that not a waste of emotional capacity? or does the bus stop have as many feelings as what I want to give it, you know if a tree falls in the forest…

I guess what it comes down to is that in the end I feel valued when I feel useful, and this doesn’t have to be useful in a practical sense, that kind of useful is good too and I feel valued when I can help or be of service in some way that I am able to physically or have the appropriate means to, but actually useful can just be that I make someone laugh or smile, or love them unconditionally or not unconditionally but I love them. Or useful in the sense that I’m part of something broader, I can be a part of something larger to make change…

I feel like as soon as you put thoughts down on a paper or a screen it sort of sets them in stone, sometimes with these stream of consciousness tasks things come out in a way that may not read how you thought, or things are still forming in your mind but they’re already written down so it’s too late to re define them into how you thought they might come out, I know this is the point of the task but as I have been writing there have been things that I could’ve/wanted to unpack a bit more, provide more explanation to my thoughts but by the time I realised I wanted to do that I was totally in the next paragraph writing about something else, my brain takes a while to catch up with me sometimes I think that’s why I need to take time before I speak, try to arrange my thoughts before they are out of my mouth, anyways.

Also, in thinking about the ‘abstract’ people and when do they become not abstract or when they become of more value to us. I guess seeing a potential threat or risk imposed on people automatically generates a response in us to care more or to feel something for these people. When that threat or risk becomes visible to us we suddenly have more of an emotional response. Would we feel more for the person we say fell off a cliff than the person who quietly slipped away in a hospital bed, maybe they are both the same age and we know neither of them. But that, for want of a better word, thrill (and not a good thrill) of seeing someone fall off a cliff can potentially generate a feeling or response within us to feel more for that person, or want to know more about then because the action of it is terrifying and more of a spectacle. I think it comes back to the publicity of things or the freak nature, like the boys in the cave compared to hunger, or disease, why do humans feel more compelled to be called to action when it’s a freak accident rather than a consistent problem that affects humans just as much if not more in their destruction.

I feel valued when… I do the dishes, and my partner says ‘hey! thanks for doing the dishes Waangenga, I really appreciate that.’

I feel valued when somebody has seen me perform, and tells me that they.. are deeply moved by my performance. Or felt what I was doing on stage affected them.

I feel valued when my salary, or pay for work is valuing that of my skill set, and my experience.

[Sigh] I feel valued when I’m walking on the beach in the morning and someone just gives me a little head-tilt to acknowledge my presence.

I feel valued when my son or my daughter come to me to seek comfort and feel safe and comforted in me.

I feel valued as a son when my mother or father remarks [coughs] on my generosity or my thoughtfulness.

I feel valued when I’m acknowledged for work that I have done not for the acknowledgment but just be simply seen for what I’ve done.

Value [sigh] V-A-L-U-E [sigh] Val-you, val-me, val-us.

I feel valued….it’s a funny word, isn’t it? Repeating over and over again - value, val-ue, VALUE. [Singing] I feel valuuueeed, when I’m held by my lover! I feel valuuueee, when I’m thanked, or supported by my brother! I feel valuuueee, hah! [Speaking again] When my mumma tells me, ‘I care.’

I feel value when my father tells me that he had made the same decision I had to be a better father.

I feel valued by the birds when I walk into the bush and they sing their secret song. I feel value when I step into the ocean and the deep effervescence of the waves holds me, welcomes me into the water. I feel value when I take the time with myself to value myself.

I feel a deep sense of value when I understand and know my worth.

I feel value, I feel value, [Singing] I feel valuuueee! 

Value, value, value, value, value, value, value, value. I feel value. I..feel..value. I..feel.value.

I feel valued when I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I am driving a bus, and the passenger says, before they get off the bus, ‘thanks driver!’

Hmmm..

I feel valued when I’m asked my thoughts or opinion on a subject matter that I feel passionate or informed on or knowledgeable about.

[Singing] I feel valuuueeed!

I feel valued when I feel cheap, and I val...and I feel like, um, when I don’t value myself those around me don’t value as..me as much either. When I don’t feel my self-worth, my value can be exploited.

I feel valued...sometimes on a Monday, rarely on a Tuesday, a little bit more Wednesday, Thursday I forget all about my value. And then Friday’s payday! And then, then I see my value in monetary terms. And then I might disrespect my own value on a weekend. And the money I...I’ve used to value me and my work [coughs] is pissed up against a wall..hahaha!

I feel valued..I feel valued..

[Sigh]

What is value?What is it to be valued?What is the felt sense of being valued?To be heard and to...understood?Someone, or something…To understand the breadth of what you have to offer?

I feel value when I’m not ignored.

I feel valued when I’m held, when I’m kissed, when I’m seen. When someone [sigh] hands me a plate of food that they’ve prepared from their heart.

I feel valued, even when I’m not…

I think the way physical proximity affects value is….hey, I don’t understand this fucking question. But I do, in my own way, so here and answer - ahhh, physical proximity affecting value, something’s close to meee, I tend to value it more. I value my oven and my stove top in my kitchen. I value it because it’s in the space that I live in. In the most used cooking facility in the house. I feel more value for the trees on my property because I feel a relationship with them, because provide me with the shade, and house the birds that sing me the songs. And they give the shade, and they give us….. the beautiful oxygen.

I feel, when we are ummm….. in close proximityyyyyy, physical proximity, it affects the value because it’s a constant in our life, it becomes a part of our everyday life. And so we value it more, because it’s, it affects us. Cause it’s with us. It’s around us.

I value the mountains around me, because I get to see them everyday. And I care for their conservation. And I care how the..those mountains, how people enter them, and use them, and wal..tread upon them.

I value the ocean that I swim in everyday. The ocean is a little different. Even though it’s a close proximity, I um, I...I value how we affect our sea directly. But then I...I truly value all the ocean and how others are treating it all around the world. Because it’s all one big sentient motherfucking being. 

And...I…[sigh]...think that when we start to have and connect to a relationship with a...object, objects, people, things, physical things, within the proximity of closeness...we value it because...it’s a part of us everyday. Day to day.

When I think...when I consider vulnerability and power I think of...hmm...when I consider vulner..vulnerability and power, I think of...vulnerability and power, I think of...when I think of, when I consider vulnerability and power, I think of nature. I think of the vulnerability of nay-chaaa! And the power of nay-chaaa! And the beautiful intersection of those two dynamics - power and vulnerability. I think about the power of a clamshell. The power of that structure. And the vulnerability it offers itself each day in opening itself to receive nutrients and light and food, in that soft, fleshy womb, inside that hard, powerful encasing of clamshell.

I think of the power of birth! And I think about the vulnerability in...in birth. As mother brings into being new life. As they slither between the veil of spirit and physical, in this material and 3D world.

I think about how nature is a mirror for human relationships. I think about the vulnerability we offer ourselves into when we are in a relationship of love. And that that means that we have to be vulnerable with each other. To be authentic. To be honest.

I think about power and the micro-subtle layer of power, to the gross and maxed-out versions of power.

Even the word ‘power’ has an...an ono-mato-poeic quality. POWER!

I always think of power as large and grand, but power is also delicious and soft and subtle as well, like...water. A gentle stream, working its way, slowly working its way into the earth, grinding and shifting sands.

And I think about large examples of water power - the ocean, and water falling, huge swells crashing against cliff edges, wearing away stone.

I think about acid rain, and the power of that. Acidity, high acidity in rain, also dissolving, breaking and wearing away earth’s surface.

Oh, I think about power of the mind, and the vulnerability of the ego, and the mind. I think about the power of consciousness. I think about the power of love. I think about the vulnerability of power being put into the hands of ego - Man.

I think about the power of power when it comes from a place of love.

I think about vulnerability and power as these two op..extremes, at polar opposite ends to each other. But, I don’t know, the more I think about that..

You can have power and also vulnerability as well. The big thing with pow..vulnerability I’m noticing, people are feeling called to be vulnerable. I don’t know, in..in my world anyway, in teaching world, when people are teaching, or, um, coming from a place of guru, maybe, like offering themselves as vulnerable to.. that others feel at ease, to know that we are all human, doesn’t matter where we stand on the scale of things in terms of power, that we are all at some point vulnerable. Just living is vulnerable, being in this flesh suit is to be vulnerable.

The sweetness and softness of vulnerability, the relatability of vulnerability.

Something that most people have been conditioned to be growing up.. or to grow into is to be powerful, full of power. But I’m feeling people have been called to be.. to truly nourish their spirit is to be vulnerable.. to not put on this face.. to not always play the brave game.

Vulnerability and power; the bee in the flower.