Day 42 - Tuesday - 8/9/22

ON VALUE

Paint the perfect picture Of picture perfect you. Imagine it. Can you see it? Now. What is its value? To you?
In words. How many words is that picture worth? I say one. Priceless.
~Arrow Sender

Got a 72 hour cleanup notice from the Park Rangers some time ago. July 18th to be exact. Just pulled a copy of the official government agency document from my murse. Held on to it all this time. It has value. To me. Made sure I posted it to the trunk of every palm tree with some shade canopy underneath which I offloaded “my stuff.” To take a load off. Or to make a day camp for some part of the day while the business of street life whisked me away. I’m proud of that notice. I feel … official. Someone recognized “my stuff”!

Of particular interest, I noticed this among the notice’s script, “There will be a cleanup of this area after 72 hrs from the posting of this notice. All personal items must be removed from the area. Items WITH NO APPARENT VALUE in the area will be taken to the county landfill for disposal. Items OF VALUE remaining in the area will be stored … and may be claimed … for 90 days (...).” (emphasis added)

Amused me then and amuses me now that “items” with NO apparent VALUE are rendered distinct from “items” of VALUE. Some items have de facto VALUE as evinced by the choice of one or more civil servants assigned the duty (among other duties as assigned) of VALUE arbiter. By the power vested in thee some items have no apparent value while others have … some. I wonder if value is determined by the sum of some or all parts? Or items. Is there not any apparent value in the entire collection? Is not the person or persons who spent the time to gather such “noticed” items the one best to determine value? Apparently not. Any apparent value that could be found by a collector in the entire collection or any item contained therein would be biased. Naturally. The collector (owner) may value items subjectively. Intrinsic to human nature.

All in jest of course. Very rational, reasonable approach to an apparent problem. Camps. Grrrr. Their lack of maintenance, specifically. Deprived of dignity by maintainer depravity. Desertion … Still has me thinking though. On value.

The triangular (arrow head) shaped coral amulet necklace I gifted the a truly wonder public servant at the DMV a few weeks back (best DMV experience ever!) had no value. She was not supposed to have taken a gift from a human (on the “other side” of the governmental counter). Not while on the job. Serving. How could (did?) she justify accepting an item of jewelry from a homeless man? Because it came from someone with nothing who made it from nothing to be noticed as something by someone other than me. It wasn’t mine to begin with is how I see it. Quite literally, the “item” had NO VALUE.

Found the coral beached immediately west of Sterns. Had the thin wire strand on me at the time (scavenged some time before, from somewhere I do not know), and completed the work of “art” with a blue and coralish-pink shoe string lifted from a solo sneaker deposited at the top of a nearfull public trash can on Haley near Catholic Charities. Three “items” with no apparent value strung together into a collection of items with no apparent value. Order from chaos. Creation. Still. NO apparent VALUE!

If left in a camp subject to 72 hr notice. Or would the City’s VALUE arbiter designee deem the jewel an “item” of VALUE? I suppose it comes down to how one values PRICELESS. “Items” scavenged from nature and brought to a point of order by me. Something made from nothing. Nothing of apparent value. Still a gift of creation. Something I made. Myself. With LOVE. Which perhaps has no apparent VALUE. Or value = UNDEFINED. Because LOVE is. It simply is. As is PRICELESS. .

More on the intrinsic priceless value of LOVE another time.