e-VALUE-ating Others - Day 77

Art by Joana Ricou

This post is a continuation of Every One has a SELF and this is Frightening - Day 76

I am trying to be more aware of myself in my awareness of others as actual life forms with selves with/as life, within an attempt to direct myself within oneness and equality as what is best for all. Right now this mostly consists of periodically remembering to remind myself that "this is a person" that I am talking to. I don't know if others share the experiences that I described in my last post, but it is pretty weird to me that I can go through life without really realizing that all these other people are actually people, like myself. Like, how did that happen? Not one of us is better than or less than another one of us. We are all one and equal, and we should behave as such. We should thus also construct our world, our societies, as such. But we have not. So I would guess that others do share my experience of completely blinding self to the fact that we are all the same.


I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always relate to others from the starting point of my own self interest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always relate to others from and as my self-centeredness, where as I look at another I am seeing them through my eyes, and if I turn my head, I am again seeing through my eyes, and within this my world revolves around me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and/or operate as if the world revolves around me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fool myself into thinking/believing that I am compassionate, generous, kind, and considerate of others. I have never really truly considered another.

I forgive myself that I have never accepted or allowed myself to really truly consider another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always judge others, to always be e-VALUE-ating others, assessing others and placing value on them and to then relate to them from and as my judgments of their worth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at others and at myself within the framework context of worth and value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that a human hierarchy of worth and value exists, is inevitable or natural, and yet have also espoused to believe in equality through studies of things like racism, sexism, classism, etc.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to cover who I am in my selfishness and bigotry of life with my studies and self definitions within "feminism."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to buy into the belief that some people matter more than some other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at another person and judge/assess them and give them a value even before I have interacted with them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to e-VALUE-ate another even after we have interacted, and then have based my relationship with them and how I relate to them on my evaluation/assessment of their worth, where here because we have already interacted I believe that my opinions/judgments about them hold more weight or are more valid or are true or right.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create opinions about other people as their worth, as who they are, as what they are worth to me or in general.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create others as well as myself as commodities which have varying worths or values.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at another human being and think nasty thoughts about them as to why it is okay to treat them either physically or within my mind as less than me or less than another or less than human.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore human rights violations/injustices because it is easier to do so and that I have justified this within the implicit belief that these humans are somehow worth less than other humans, or matter to me less than other humans, so it's okay to ignore it, and is easier to do so anyway.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to differentiate values between people and between others and myself, within this separating myself from all others and separating all from the value of life.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to understand and implement through my living expression of myself that life is what is most valuable, where here we are all life, one and equal to and as life.

I forgive myself that I have never ever accepted or allowed myself to exist in this world as one and as equal to others, as life, as what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create within my self definitions justifications and explanations that validate who I am as considerate of others when really I have only ever considered myself within my self interest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am "basically a good person," or "not that bad," or "working toward the solution, not the problem," when all along I have only ever operated from the starting point of my own self interest within protecting my ego, my fears, my desires, etc.


It is funny because early on in DIP Lite there are some rather "harsh" words which are written toward the reader about being evil and about having never ever not once really considered another, having always been self interested. And I thought, but wait! But I help others! But I work with the disenfranchised! But I am a good person!

All of that is well and good. But it does not change that I have always done those things from my self interest, because this is who I have been: self-interested, in and as separation from all others as one and equal as life. And therefore it has never been pure, it has never been what is best for all.


When and as I see myself judging, assessing, or evaluating another, I stop and I breathe. I realize that these opinions I am forming are informing who I am, that within these opinions/beliefs I will be able to keep the machine running as justifications for my self interest, for my ego, and to continue to justify my participation within a system that is not best for all. I realize that within these evaluations I am actively denying oneness and equality of and as life for myself and for those I am judging. I commit myself to continue to investigate myself and peel away the layers of myself to see myself as who I am within self honesty within oneness and equality. I commit myself to continuing to see others as myself, not just as helpful mirror for seeing myself, but actually as myself, as the worth and value and interest I place in myself, so that here I might understand that others are other selves, and within self-hood we are all one, and within oneness we are all equal, and we are all life. I commit myself to continuing to direct myself toward understanding of what oneness and equality is, and what is best for all, and how to actualize these within my daily lived experience as life.