Spiritual Values

Five years ago I worked cooking Mexican food in the kitchen of a tiny restaurant in upstate New York. The boss had good taste in music, so the small overlap between what she liked and what was appropriate induced a lot of Johnny Cash - mainly the American Recordings series. Unchained is the least spectacular of those albums, but “Spiritual,” about midway through, shook me fiercely...often. I took in every expiration and imagined myself next to that great American as he sang out to his God, immersed in perfect loneliness, praying for comfort.

I am not Christian. I’ve read the Bible, so I’m sure. The book, especially in modern translation without the stylistic frills and convenient inaccuracies of the King James, is at worst offensive and at best absurd. Still, when that song came on, I was able to pretend I could feel what he felt, because I couldn't shake that Christian performance and the feeling of those special few seconds when he sings/cries for the final time, “All my troubles...all my pain.” It's overwhelming. I don't think Cash ever got to those notes again, and I think about Rick Rubin, the Heartbreakers, some engineer, whoever else was in that room when he did that. I think about how fortunate those people were to have been a part of it. How valuable the experience was, because there was only one occurrence of that incredible moment in our history, and it will never happen again.

The reason our lives have value is because those moments happen. The first thing people learn about economics is the correct price of any commodity lies at the intersection of the supply and demand curves. As either demand increases or supply decreases, value goes up.

We are witness to special things, singular things. Because we want them and because of their ultimate exclusivity, they are supremely valuable. However, because those moments are valuable, buyers and sellers will attempt to put a number on that value. We know exactly how to price Johnny Cash's Unchained CD ($14.50 on Amazon) or the “Spiritual” mp3 (99¢ on iTunes), but the experience of watching Johnny Cash create that moment, which because of a bout of pneumonia and subsequent lung damage he would never be able to re-create, is currently elusive to the marketplace. But this will change.

Earlier this year, The Beatles: Rock Band was released. According to the sellers, “you won't just watch and listen as The Beatles make rock history, create landmark records, and conquer the world – for the first time, you’ll be part of the band!” The Beatles' complete experience, previously limited to the minds and memories of those who lived it, is now for sale. Yes, this is a video game in which a cartoon version of one of the Fab Four acts out what you play on a plastic instrument. Yes I'm being hyperbolic, but only because this is the limit of what technology has to offer in 2009.

More and more of our world is being captured as data. Data is getting easier and easier to store, and human beings have shown an interest in spending significant amounts of time in virtual realities. So, it's not unreasonable to think in a century or two, entire lives will be recorded, encoded, stored, and available to be re-experienced for a specific dollar amount. What was once of extremely limited supply will have wide-spread release, and the price/value of what was once an exclusive experience will be radically reduced. Any life worth reliving will be relived. What was once personal will be sold to the public. Our lives, if determined to be valuable, will cease being unique, and as technology advances and artificial experiences become increasingly authentic, the distinction between the original and the second-generation rendering will become less important.

It's the beginning of the 21st century, so when I walk down the street feeling the rain make my hair wet, listening to the sounds of automobiles and sipping the black coffee I just bought, I'm confident that no one else will look through my eyes and get to have this moment. And that makes this (literally) invaluable. I'm not sure how long it will last. There may be a few more generations who will have exclusive domain over themselves, who will truly appreciate solitude. While things still happen unrecorded and unable to be relived, we remain beyond the reach of the marketplace, and we avoid being commodified. Our lives, our troubles, our pain is our own, and for the time being, it's up to us if we want to sing about it.