When a figure changes into a devil

Hi! Everyone! Today, I want to talk about the figure. How do you cope with a figure? You have never thought of that? Yeah! There are lots of figures. A figure becomes a price of a thing, points of the shopping card, scores of a contest like Figure skating, and so on. Prices of vegetables change depending on the season and weather. Scores of tests are decided depending on a question. That is to say, those figures are satisfactory. On the other hand, there are obscure figures. For example, there are amount of money to express one’s sense of gratitude, money given to the performers and so on. I will write about the act of representing “the value of things” with a figure.

This book “Money 2.0” ( written by Katuaki Sato, published by Gentosya) was introduced on steemit. It is a very interesting book. Thank you for introducing it, Steemit friend. I was really impressed with “the three categories of worth” of this book’s content especially.

According to this book, there are three kinds of values : ①Values as a utility ②Internal values ③Social values. Values as a utility focuses on how much money one can earn. Internal values gives one positive feelings even though it doesn’t give one any money. For example, when one sees a cute cat on Twitter, it makes one feel appeased, and one tends to press the like button on it. Social worth is the worth to increase durability of whole society; it is not for an individual. As with the Internal values, it doesn’t generate an individual profits. However, we feel worthy of the volunteer for landslides-disaster-stricken area n in Hiroshima city.

Capitalism in our time tends to emphasis on ①Values as a utility. I think that Internal values and Social values are too often neglected. Human beings have desire for recognition; everybody wants to gain the acceptance of others. When we win a prize in a contest and get a financial stake, we can win our approval. But what if we couldn’t feel recognized even though we succeeded to improve performance and to establish credibility after we made a great effort? For example, let’s suppose that there is one person who has been working for a company for 10 years and he is a number-one businessman in both capacity and performance. What if he is not promoted yet, furthermore he cannot get a raise yet? He shall feel like his desire for recognition have been trampled on.

I want to give a detailed description on today’s title “When a figure changes into a devil”. There is an easy example to understand. But it is not realistic. I would give you this example deliberately because it is really easy to understand. 10 friends were invited to one couple’s wedding reception. You are also included in 10 friends. 10 friends decided to give the couple 30,000 yen for wedding gifts. And they did so. In Japan, after wedding reception, wedding favors are given to invited guests. 9 friends get the same nice wedding gifts besides you. What if only you get a chocolate that costs 100 yen? Only 100 yen for 30,000 yen!! It is the very time that a figure changes into a devil. This is an extreme example that you would never experience in Japan, but I am sure that you can understand how greatly a person is shocked due to a rude behavior.

However, in everyday life, there are lots of obscure figures that you can decide by yourself. I think that people show what they really are when they choose figures. When I was an elementary school student, all classmates decided to give a class teacher birthday presents through a discussion; everyone gave his or her own different present to the teacher. As I was of poor family, I remember that I gave an inexpensive handkerchief I stitched a tulip embroidery on it by myself. I saw other students giving the teacher very nice presents that look expensive. The teacher gave us candies as a token of her appreciation. I remember her giving me slightly more candies in my pocket than other students. I was glad to know that she liked my present. I worked very hard for a long time to stitch because I wanted to please the teacher. My desire for recognition was fulfilled.

It is very difficult to evaluate the work of other people. But when we think much of only ①Values as a utility, I think it is quite easy to evaluate the thing because all we have to do is getting along with only rich and high rank people: these kinds of people consider that if it is profitable or not is most important. On the other hand, as far as Internal values and Social values are concerned, they tend to be judged by likes and dislikes because there’s no accounting for tastes. For example, let’s assume that someone read an article about a new medicine; it was written about what characteristics it has, for what disease it is used, and how it works, etc. I think it is an article that values socially. However, if he or she has never had a serious illness before, he or she tends to think “it has nothing to do with me”. Sometimes, he or she judges that adhesive sheet sold at one coin shop is more worth than an article about medicine. However little the explanation is, no matter what so many meaningless photos are included, he or she wants to give good marks in the article. Nevertheless, it is his or her value or priority, so, the evaluator is not to blame and has no obligation to give good marks to somebody’s article. However, when a person who wrote an article that values socially receives a terrible grade, he or she gets hurt terribly; lots of time and effort are required to provide a worthy information.

What I want to tell you is that I want to belong to the grope that share the same values. If one belongs to the grope that has quite different values from one, one is deeply hurt by low rating because one’s desire for recognition is trampled on. And one’s motivation will drop sharply. For example, in the seniority –wage system company, even though you make a great effort, you couldn’t win against an employee who joined a company earlier than you and older than you. You will never get recognition even though you have a nice idea to improve the company. In a grope like a company and so on, I think that a person who reigns over the grope, that is to say a boss etc, has priority ranking: who is the most important people, what is the most important things, but I’m sure that it is very hard for everybody to continue to belong to the grope that that has quite different values from each other.

Everybody wants to participate actively in the world that three values: ①Values as a utility ②Internal values ③Social values exist in well balance. To live in the world like this, I think that it is very important to brush up one’s area of specialty; One is second to none in singing Enka among ordinary people even though one is not a professional singer. One is a good painter, and so on. Today, don’t you think that a person who has strengths in something can success in various kinds of world: in blog, in You Tube, in company, and so on. Even if you climb to the head of the section, you are just anyone after you leave a company. If you build up a career due to the seniority system or connection and leave the company, I am sure you will experience a miserable situation. And I believe that the world that only ①Values as a utility is regarded as the most important will collapse one day surely.

I am glad if there is somebody who sympathizes with how I feel. On the contrary, if there is a person who couldn’t sympathize with my idea, I don’t care about it.

Thank you for reading my blog through to the end.