Today's thought...hhhhmmmmm...maybe relevant!

The daily planner had this heading and it caught my eye...hhhmmm?

"To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything." by Joan Didion.

Starting from the back..."to have everything", is nice of course, but meaningless. It is "The Dream", "Disneyland" stuff. The marketing media hypnotic - and many times subliminal - messaging. At the end of the day, and at "the end" - you know what I mean? - who cares? Just because you had more toys than I did, we are going to the same..."base": 6 feet under...and that's a maybe!

So forget that "have everyhing" line, but maybe there is more. Let's see.
"Potentially" that sounds like a "safety" expression put in by the author to not really provide certainty in her statement. It sort of softens it; allows for other possibilities. It is used to avoid conflict, to go to the 'gray" rather than the "black and white stuff". So, is she not sure? Selling a "damaged goods" bag? Fishing? Let's see.

"Worth which constitutes self-respect": hhhhmmm. Put that way, isn't that the definition of our "ego"? That which identifies us thru life, and which directs all our actions, and is at the mercy of self-protection and continual enhancement, and judges value in self and others continually as comparison, and condemns those that do not give us the value we "deserve"? And works incessantly to gather more "value". Is that it? So, where is the worth after all of that work? Why do we keep on 'doing' it, when it feels as we there is none, and or that it disappears as soon as we get 'some'?

Is it the old argument of the "mineral deposits" of our "self" when the water is dessicated out? Just a few grams of salts and minerals are left, and the rest is water vapor? Or, is it the effect of the adulations by others which we start believing and incorporate into our being as "self-respect"? That is the "ego": is it not? Hhhhmmm.

Doesn't sound , shall we say, "good".

But now, let's add the modifier: "intrinsic". Hhhhmmmm. That takes it to another level. It is not now, external. It points to "the inside". To "deep". "Deeper". Something maybe "not malleable", rock-solid, with some sort of independence from 'factors'. "An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, independently of other things, including its context." Ahhhh?

You mean to tell me that ...I have value "as of 'myself' "? Just because..."I am"? Independently of..."other things", as if "in vacuo"...by myself alone, just 'because'? Really?

And how about you? You too? You 'belong' in the same ...to the same...'thing'? You and I "suffer" the same "value thing", and "bear it", and have borne it all our lives? And how about everyone else? The whole world? Those present? And how about those that lived before? Since the beginning of ...whatever "this" is? They, too? And how about those that are still not 'here'? Do they have intrinsic value too?

This needs some time for 'settling'. Too many repercussions were this to be internalized and accepted...

Can you imagine unhooking from so many proverbial 'hooks' that we have bit onto throughout our lives to get that elusive 'value'? It is like the image of winning the lottery and going by the office and letting the boss know...before or after exclaiming ..."take this job and shove it!". A new life is ahead, energies are booming and redirected, tear and wear disappear, the 'slate' is 'clean', full of possibilities. The challenge is not missing the old habits, not repeating behaviors of the old framework of mind, emotions and judgments.

In a sense it must be like the idea of being reborn. The new 'ego' (or whatver occupies its place, as in Self?, capital "S") needs to be trained as if it were the first hours out of the 'womb'.Everything is new. A new perspective on life...present, past, and future. Almost like getting a view from the elder giraffe's perspective.  Can you imagine...living like that?

Maybe that is what 'resurrection" is all about. Joan Didion maybe knows something I, we, do not. Hhhhmmmm.