Nothing is intrinsically valuable; the value of everything is attributed to it, assigned to it from outside the thing itself, by people.
Interpretation
Value is not inherent to objects; it depends on external perceptions and attributions by people.
This quote by John Barth suggests that worth is not an intrinsic property of items but rather is assigned by societal consensus. It implies that our understanding of value is subjective and shaped by human belief and context, challenging the notion that things possess inherent worth independent of human interpretation.
In practice
In a discussion about art, one might use this quote to illustrate how art's value is determined by collectors and society.
He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator -- though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed.
You don't reach Serendib by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings... serendipitously.
In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.
I particularly scorn my fondness for paradox. I despise pessimism, narcissism, solipsism, truculence, word-play, and pusillanimity, my chiefer inclinations; loathe self-loathers ergo me; have no pity for self-pity and so am free of that sweet baseness. I doubt I am. Being meβs no joke.
I think that wealthy white people would like to have a country that resembles the Fifties, when all the minorities were tucked away in ghettos and paid in very low wages but on the surface it was very bright and shiny and free and the rest of the world would look on it longingly.
In 'Self Comes to Mind' I pay a lot of attention to simple creatures without brains or minds, because those 'cartooned abstractions of who we are' operate on precisely the same principles that we do.
We must be free for the truth; and conversely, to be able to be open toward the truth may be our deepest freedom as human creatures.
All you need to do is recognize your true position as the witness. You only have to do this for some time, until the spell is broken. Even after the spell is broken these mental tendencies may arise, but without any power, just like you can see the moon in the daylight.
Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.
That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.
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