Do you matter?

Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun, 1889 - Vincent Van Gogh

 I've been feeling down lately. 

Watching Never Let Me Go gave me some grist for my mill.  I was thinking about how the donors don't matter to the "real world."  They are, still, useful and helpful to the real world.  They come to know their lack of mattering from reflection and interactions and never by someone from the outside world saying that they don't matter.  

It made me think about how we are "told" we don't matter.   Your feelings don't matter.  Your interests don't matter.  Ultimately, YOU don't matter.  (This is different than "hated".) Is it directly - by evidence that we are discarded after use, that we are disposable, interchangeable? Or indirectly, by a lack of evidence that we are important? (additional thought: if we think we matter (or are useful), but it's not expressed, we feel like we are "taken for granted.")

This led me to think: has anyone shown you kindness today?  has anyone shown you tenderness? compassion? interest?  (does appreciation fit here?  likely, but it's lower on the totem pole because it's easy to show appreciation to people we have no connections with.)

I think that these are the things that make us feel like we matter.  We "matter" to someone else.  We "matter" not in the abstract, but in specific relation to others.    

This brings me back to my feelings of down-ness.  I am unhappy because I am not often the recipient of the things above with the exception of Jennie.  Either others are too busy to express these things - kindness, compassion, interest - or that really I don't matter... that I'm related to the donors in Never Let Me Go.  I might be useful; I might be doing my job; I might be a good care-taker of the house... but do I feel I matter?

Ultimately, these are lessons for me:  have you shown kindness to anyone?  have you shown tenderness? compassion? interest? 

This makes me think of "gift giving" that I thought about a year ago with this blog.  Gifts, at least ones that come from compassion and interest, are evidence that we matter.  

(I'm thinking that this is different than 'having purpose' and 'having a goal'.... other things that give us meaning.)