Questions?

I have been thinking about my life story and wondering exactly who owns the rights. Who is it exactly that determines if I have lead a successful, book-worthy life? Is that the judgement in itself, a book deal? Or, a made for TV movie? Or best, an interview on Oprah! Even then, how much control do I have over the content?

Is my worth only determined by me? Or do others have a say in my worth? And who determines who has a say? Is it only me? If so, wouldn't I want to pick only people who liked me? Why pick anyone who has a negative view? Although, that perspective seems a little too George Bush-Esq. For me anyway.

And, if it is others who determine my worth, then what are their inputs? My blog? My MySpace account? Oh my god, I don't even have a Facebook account!

Or is it their interactions with me? And, if it is their interactions, how much interaction is enough? I mean, even Beth, who I spend lots and lots of time with, isn't with me more than, I am guessing here, a quarter of my time (you figure I spend 40 hours a week at work without her). What do most others get? My closest friends might get two hours a week, not including email time, so lets add in another two hours just to be generous. So, is four hours a week enough to judge whether I have lived a life worth living?

Or, is it the images I portray, the stories I tell? The pictures I hang in my house show me as healthy, active, positive and in close friendships with loads of people. But, take a closer look. How often do I communicate with all those people and on what level? What do they really know about me and what do I know about them?

Take my blog for example, or anyone's MySpace accounts, or even videos posted on YouTube. They are an interesting collection of self-selected images chosen to portray a certain "look" or attitude or belief. I don't think I have seen many MySpace pages full of pictures of the owner all alone. No, they must portray the image of a fun life, full of friends and happiness!

What do those pictures say of someones internal state of being? What do they say about the sum total of someone? What do they show about the person as a whole intact being? And, does that even matter? Or, is the image enough?

But, I see a problem in that a lot of the images are the same. Everyone is different from everyone else in all the same ways. So how do you really know someone, how can you judge someone, and do you even need to?

It brings up another question which will lead to lots of other questions I won't go into, but what is the point of relationships? Are they just to meet our own needs for happiness, security, sex, procreation? And how do we achieve those ends? Why does each person choose a particular means to those ends? And, do most of us even choose, or do we stumble, unconscious and blind into relationships?

But, I digress. Back to image and judgements and who decides the value of someones life. I think I have brought up plenty of questions to ponder on the topic of others choosing our relative value, our watch-ability or readability, or whatever. But what if it is me who chooses my own worth? I mean, why shouldn't I, right? Why should someone else decide how valuable I am, how worthy I am?

(Some of you might be saying we are all "worth" the same...if that is true, how come you live in a house while people of the same "worth" live in an apartment, or are homeless or are starving? Are they worth less than you? Why do you get to afford Starbucks while someone else only gets Circle K coffee. Or, why do you get freedom, when seemingly innocent people continents away get persecuted because their nose is a different size than the majority. If you believe in the latest Oprah driven pop craze, "The Secret" than maybe you think they haven't imagined their own wealth well enough.)

Alright, I digressed again. Back to the point of me deciding my value. If it is only me then what is the incentive to do anything that makes other people happy? Wouldn't I just want to manipulate others in order to achieve my own pleasure?

And, isn't that what a lot of us kind of do? Aren't relationships just us trying to make other people happy to achieve our own happiness? Who among us makes other people happy for their own sadness? And, if that is what they choose, then why? How many of us do something for someone else without expectation of some result? Even if by some standard we believe the action or the expected result are fairly benign?

It begs the question, why help? Why give to others, why provide assistance to others in need? Most of us do that, but do we do it out of pure altruism or because it makes us feel good? I mean, Gandhi had to feel more positive feelings from the "goodness" of his work than he felt bad feelings from the suffering he endured in order to push on. So, why? What is it about humans that propels us to help others? And, is that what determines our worth?

Say I am the one who chooses whether I have lived a good life. Couldn't I just booze it up for 30 years, have sex with a lot of women, use people for short term pleasure, kick the bucket and call it a life? Well, that doesn't seem very fun. To me anyway. But is there anything "wrong" with it, if it makes a person happy?

If we, on our own, determine our worth and values as humans, what are the indicators we use and why do we pick them? Are some indicators more worthy than others? What is the time horizon we use? And what are our expectations for being worthy in our own eyes? What do we deserve, what is our prize if we live a life worth living?

(Kind of makes me think of issues of past, present and future, but this time I will avoid the digression).

And finally, who has the answers? And do any of these questions even matter? And, if they do, which I would like to think they do, how have these questions changed over time? Or have they? As Bare Naked Ladies states correctly, "It's all been done, ooh, ooh, ooooh, It's all been dooooone before!"

But, if all these questions have all been asked before, than how are the answers different now from 1000 years ago? How does our current culture affect the questions and the answers? And, at the risk of repeating myself, does any of it even matter?

I can see why people "find" religion...okay, talk amongst yourselves...