I have been thinking a lot about this issue.
What’s the value of a person, what does the value of someone signify and what does this count towards.
I haven’t reached any final decision but my thoughts right now lead me to believe that the actual value of a person
is never higher than the value that each of the people around him bestow to him and that this value is not commulative or global but unique for each of the “buyers”.
That said, the average value of a human being is the average value of the values awarded to him within a variance. This average value represents the way that people that know the individual think of him, the way that his image is engraved into their mind, for luck of a better phrase we can call it a person’s “face value”.
Packaging
Modern society and the western world as I know it have done an amazing work on clearly separating the value of a product from the way that the product is demonstrated. What I am trying to say is that in many cases first impressions do not actually count against the “face value” of a certain individual because as a commodity the first evaluation is made on the account of “packaging”. The packaging can be a series of properties ranging from appearance, the individuals ability to converse, or the culture/subculture he belongs to in contrast with the theoretical or not placement of the receiver in this this cultural group.
In lamest terms, I believe that in many occasions the way you look changes your value radically, and due to the fact that the time that is being awarded to each piece of information in modern society has fallen immensely this might also be the final value of the individual.
Where does this leave us? Well truth is that simply put, people rarely now days give to other people the time needed to really get to know someone except if the first impression they have of them is a really really good one.
If you do not belong in this “category” of people with nice packaging well, tough luck. It might not be the end of the world but be prepared for a hard ride. Try to make yourself unique in other ways, and learn how to impress people in other more subtle and less profound ways.
What do you think about packaging and the value of an individual?
Do you have any ideas about things that make someone unique and can be applied to a first encounter?
—-
P.S. Thank you Alex for the corrections, it’s really appreciated.
One Comment
I would say that, first of all, there is an issue in comparing a human being (rather, an [e.g. friendly or amorous] relationship with a human being) to any product: The buying (or, shall we say, investment) process is different among different products, and very different in people.
Let’s take as example (a), an iPod; example (b), a coat; example (c) tennis lessons (a service); and (d) an interpersonal relation.
Although the good invested to acquire all three examples differs from the one commonly invested in getting to know a person (i.e. one buys a friend or lover not with money but with time*), I would say that as far as the investment process goes, they are sorted from the most dissimilar to the most similar when compared to a friend.
In (a), one simply approaches the product and trades it for its assigned value in money.
In (b), one approaches the product, tries it to see whether it fits, then may decide whether to invest the money equivalent to actually acquire it.
In (c), which, being a service rather than a product, is most similar to a friendship or other interpersonal relationship, one has to, little by little, invest money, while getting to know the service and whether it fits him or her. The first try may be for free, but in the long run you get to choose more than once, twice or thrice whether you would like to keep investing in the service.
Similarly, in (d), one may not need to invest a lot of time or attention* to meet the person in question (if introduced by a common acquaintance), but in order to maintain a growing relation, one needs to keep investing time in the relation.
This would also raise the issue of value versus price, which is very valid so much in commercial products and services as in people. This can depend on circumstance and on the character of the person in question.
__________
* Although many ‘goods’ other
than time can be involved in the
transaction of acquiring a friend
or lover, I will consider them all
equivalent to varying amounts
of time, for the sake of simplicity
(and ignoring the overused
equation of time=money which,
though logical in some respects,
is more far-fetched).
Then again, your point as I understood it was more about the moment of gaining interest.
I would say that this depends heavily on the type of store you shop for friends in: I suppose there are shops where there are so many products that first appearances have to count a lot; and that in other, smaller shops, where everything is brought for display by a friend or trusted acquaintance (and products are not to be found in this overwhelming capitalist abundance that, so to speak, forces you to go for the sugars and fats since you don’t have the time to get interested in the actual taste of the thing), there, one might find that packaging matters at least a little bit less.
Of course, the best advertisement of one’s hidden qualities, supposing one cannot impress on first impression, comes from those that have experienced these qualities and can tell of them to the new potential buyers.
But, in an environment where not so much a common interest [or, even worse, a common wish to vaguely 'chill out'], but more a friendly recommendation has brought about the company, one surely has more chances to tear his own unattractive packaging and communicate directly, product-to-product with no packaging in between, thus maybe finding his or her place in that company.
I maybe babble a little bit, but I hope to have made my point.