89. we have it backwards

In our system, the symbol has become more valuable than what it represents. We’ve come to value the map more than the territory it allows us to explore. Money, over the wealth it can provide. Information, over how it can educate. And, appearance, over how to capture health. We have unknowingly become more enamored with the secondary symbol, rather than the fulfillment it offers. It’s like when you go to the grocery store, gather a cart full of goodies, and roll up to the cashier. “That’ll be $86, please,” and then you get depressed because you have to give up $86 worth of symbolic paper for an actual cart full of goodies. We just think we lost $86, when the real value is what’s in the cart. We are depressed because we place more value on the symbol than what it is gained in reality. Where something like money represents potentiality, the actual wealth it allows us — i.e., the cart full of goodies — seems ordinary and necessary because we all have to eat. We have it backwards.