I'll buy that for a dollar!
Currents of Currency Corrupt Absolutely
Sophia: Wilde, Welty, I’ve been thinking about value and empathy. Wilde, you warned that too many know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Welty, you insist on imagining oneself inside another. How do these truths intersect?
Wilde: Sophia, currency—literal or figurative—corrupts perception. When the world measures only by price, we lose sight of the beauty, subtlety, and moral worth that cannot be bought or sold. Currents of currency corrupt absolutely, because they shape thought as much as behavior.
Welty: Indeed, Oscar. And the antidote lies in imagination—the ability to inhabit another’s experience. A storywriter, or any empathetic observer, resists the tyranny of price by stepping into the lives of others. It is the first step and the last in understanding human value.
Too many people today know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Sophia: So currency, in its narrow sense, blinds us, while empathy and imagination illuminate the true measure of people, art, and life itself.
Wilde: Precisely. The world is riddled with people who mistake coins for character, contracts for conscience. To see beyond that, one must cultivate sensibility, wit, and moral discernment.
Welty: And imagination provides the lens. By entering another’s consciousness, we discover worth that is invisible to calculation. A child, a laborer, a widow—all have intrinsic value beyond market or measurement.
Sophia: Then true understanding is both moral and imaginative: resisting the corruption of currency, while inhabiting the realities of others. Value becomes relational, not transactional.
To imagine yourself inside another person... is what a storywriter does in every piece of work; it is his first step, and his last too, I suppose.
— Eudora Welty (1909-2001)
Wilde: Yes, Sophia. Money can corrupt absolutely, but perception can redeem. One must know the world’s prices, but never confuse them with worth.
Welty: And the stories we tell—through literature, conversation, or simple observation—train us to see value where the world sees only cost. That is the power of empathy.
Sophia: So the path forward is clear: cultivate imagination, discern value beyond price, and resist the corrupting currents of currency. Only then can we perceive life in its fullness.
Wilde: And perhaps enjoy it, too—without mistaking amusement for understanding.
Welty: Yes. To imagine and to feel is the truest measure of what matters.
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Heraclitus
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