worth

where does worth come from?

i googled this, and got an amusing list on yahoo questions.  check it out.

some of these responses treat it as a semantic issue, which i have always found annoying.  others treat it as something that is "created", via hard work, i.e. doing good deeds, acting decent, whatever.

i can say that i, like many others, believed in the "hard work" response.  perhaps i still do.  but in truth, there is always an inadequacy, a void, that can never be filled by holding that worth comes from hard work.  for one thing, who determines if the work was hard?  who tells you, "good job?"  perhaps no one else.  maybe people look at what you did, and they piss in your face.  so then you say, okay, hard work is not recognized by others, but I know i worked hard...  oh really?  do you?  i have tried to use self-determination to figure out how hard to work, but quite honestly, it never really works.  you either feel like you are being masochistic, or you're flaking out...  either way, you never really feel like you're getting a straight answer with regards to the question of whether or not you're really working hard.

you might then tie "hard work" to results.  perhaps you might tie good work to something completed...  ah, if only everything, every task in this world, were neat and tidy, and "complete-able."  it rarely is.  and even when it is, oh sure, you might feel worthy for the moment after completing one task, but then in each successive moment, you need to maintain that worth by doing something else, and something else, etc.

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my mom used to show me this book.  it was called "having fun being yourself."  it had a lot of cute pictures in it.  i read parts of this book, and even tried to embody some of its philosophy... there's always this feeling of- i don't know how to describe it- sadness when i read books like this...  it is the same feeling i get sometimes with regards to children.  the feeling that there is this happiness that i will always protect, because i love it, and wish it were real... but it is also something that, in certain senses, is antithetical to me and my reality...  it is a happier brighter reality that inherently exiles me...

in those books, it is a decision.  a conscious decision to say, "i like me!"  even though it sounds childish and vulnerable, when i consider its simplicity and innocence (tied to children), i want to protect it, and i want it to be real...  only, in my heart, i know it is naivette, and doomed to fail...

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so again, we return to the question: where does worth come from?  or even, what is worth?