SOMETIMES

A Means To An End...

A means to an end.
A thing, or person, that is not valued or important but is useful in achieving an aim/dream/goal.

A means to an end.
A process, a relationship, a collaboration, that one does not necessarily enjoy or covet but deems necessary to suffer through for the end goal.

A means to an end.
An unimportant venture one embarks on that satisfies the end.

A means to an end.
A begrudging agreement and acceptance of something or someone that is not a first choice but leads to a first choice.

A means to an end.
A calculated, premeditated plan that prepares one for the unwanted in the journey that will lead to the wanted.

Am I a "means to an end?"
Are the people in my life a "means to an end?"

Philosopher Immanuel Kant said that rational human beings should be treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to one. He believed that there was value in being a human being and that the value of a human being did not lie in the achievement of an objective or goal but in existence.

If there is so much value in a human being, why then can't we see it? Why are we so oblivious to it? Why do we measure the value, goodness, and usefulness of a person through the suffering of an achievement? Why do we subject each other, as human beings, to a deprecating construct that removes all of our innate humanness? Why do we try so hard to make ourselves inanimate? Why do we sign ourselves off as useless until a goal is achieved? Are we then saying that without the achievement of one, we have no usefulness? No value?

A friend is not a friend until a grand gesture is performed. A lover is not a lover until they publicize their love for you for all to see. A sibling is not a sibling until they fulfill their culturally set gender roles and responsibilities. Their value is not measured by who they are but in what they do that always has a reward or end result. We write so many people off because they did not satisfy our means to an end. Their mere existence was just not enough for us. Even the quality of our interaction and relation to them relies deeply on their ability to satisfy our means to an end. Is that something we truly want for them? For us? Are we saying then that every connection, bond, and relation formed stems from an objective? From a goal? If the pressure of always having to achieve something was stripped away, would we be able to recognize ourselves and each other? Would we be able to know how to interact with each other and coexist? Would we know who we are to each other? I think not.

There is beauty in humanness, in just existing, just being. That beauty does not need to be modified or justified. Its value is independent of everything. That is power. Human beings are power, and their value immensely indispensable.

We are not a means to an end. We are the end itself.