This is a photo of a potato. It sold for $1,000,000.

11/8/2018

Have you ever seen this photo of a potato? It sold for a million dollars. It's by the artist Kevin Abosch.

One potato. One photo. ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

For real. No tricks. No gimmicks. It wasn't being auctioned for charity, so no one did this out of the kindness of their heart. Someone wanted to pay it, and someone wanted to sell it for that amount. I don't know about you, but when I hear this it triggers all kinds of intense thoughts in me.

The idea that someone did this forces me to question my feelings about greed, value, self-worth, and limitless potential.

On the one hand, I'm amazed that someone valued themselves and their work so highly that they didn't bat an eye at this. On the other hand, the idea of doing this myself terrifies me, and so I want to judge the people who participated in this.

The only way Kevin could sell a photo of a potato for a million dollars is if he believed he could. If Kevin believed in lack and scarcity, and if he believed art has no real value, then this photo would probably be in a flea market right now, where Kevin would be struggling to sell it for $20. But Kevin doesn't play small. Kevin doesn't limit his potential. Kevin clearly believe that all possibilities are available, and that his work is worth whatever he damn well decides it is.

Now, let's be clear here - the price was a million from the get go. Non-negotiable.

Potato #345 (2010), as the photo is known, was always priced at $1,000,000. And that was exactly what Kevin told people when he showed it to them. The fact that he had the chutzpah to do this blows me away.

Because I don't believe in myself in that way, and I don't believe this is possible, I want to be cynical about this.

I want to believe this is just a reflection of the absurdity of wealthy people. I want to believe this is ridiculous, and the reflection of one man's out of control ego. I want to believe this is greedy and wrong.

What I don't want to do is ask myself why I would never value my own work in this way. I don't want to have to consider that when I say all things are possible, it includes this. I don't want to have to consider that I am a firm believer in thoughts become things but ONLY in a way that makes me comfortable.

If I'm being honest, this challenges so many ideas I have about myself and my potential that I can hardly sit with it. It makes me realize I have constricting and limiting conditions attached to the idea of value. It makes me so uncomfortable I don't want to believe Kevin and I exist on the same planet, with the same sets of Universal, cosmic laws.

And yet we do. If I really wanted to, I could stretch and expand myself and face all my worthiness issues until I too did this, in my own way. But as I write this, I don't believe that I can. And since I don't believe it... well as Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right!"

3 Comments

Jean Puhlman

11/8/2018 05:17:21 pm

I never heard of this. Who bought the potato and why? It is a bit absurd don't you think? I mean how could we believe we could sell a potato for that much money? No I don't believe I could but the question is, why would I believe it?

Do you really think this has to do with believing in ourselves? Not arguing just thinking with my keyboard. I believe in myself, that doesn't mean anyone else has to. Hmm, lots of food for thought.

Melissa Field

11/8/2018 05:18:06 pm

Jean, I love your questions, and it's not something I can easily answer, because this brings up a lot of questions in me also. But I think the main question for me is, how do we determine value, and who's to say what's absurd and what's not? If we start setting limits on value to "well if I don't need it so survive, then why should I pay x amount for it", then we start limiting our creative potential.

I also see this not so much that the potato photo is worth a million dollars, but that the artist, Kevin, was simply playing with his own creative potential. As an unlimited being, essentially an extension of source energy, I think this was him realizing that all energy is like Legos and it's there for us to play with. Money is just energy, right? I think this man truly understands how to be playful with it, and I want to understand how he became so cavalier in his approach to it. I find it fascinating.

But to go back to the self-worth and believing in ourselves part, I think this forces us to question if we still believe we have to earn. Do we see ourselves like flowers, receiving sunshine and rain simply because we exist? Or do we feel we have to work for what we get? What if we could just receive for something as simple as a photo of a potato? I think that makes us question our own intrinsic feelings about value, and how we have to "earn" what we receive. I still have a huge issue with this, because I was raised with the mentality of work hard and be realistic. But now I see this, and I have to ask, what's realistic?

I suppose in the end it's not that you yourself would believe a photo of a potato is worth this much. It's more of a blank space for you to fill in. What is your personal version of the potato photo? It might not even be a million dollars for x. It might be a million people who feel better because you wrote or shared xyz. Whatever it is, I believe we all have it in us.

Janie Martin link

1/16/2019 06:56:15 am

I have come to believe finally, if we do not put a value on our work or ourselves; no one else will.

It is all just about creating and really that is our assignment is learning to be a Co-creator. I knew nothing but poverty and abuse until I was 40.despite the fact I was studying Metaphysics since age 10 as a welfare brat living in a slum tenement apartments; I did not know how to apply my Metaphysics. Then when left alone at age 40 and no one to turn to I found a book titled The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy and I turned my entire life around.when I learned to reprogram my subconscious mind. I realized I had a victim consciousness and that kept drawing these things into my life. I was so shy I could not look anyone in the eye.
3 months later I was singing on a stage in front of several thousand people and getting an award as Best Dramatic vocalist and with no training my first job was as a headliner on a cruise ship where I was paid $3,000 in cash every 45 minutes I sang.
I learned how to create, but we are always challenged to keep creating. I have a CD that is played around the world and now in Sweden. I am not a remarkable singer at all and certainly now at 80 next year looking 20 years younger, and I am not a known person in the world I still lived my dream and created a lot for myself and want for nothing. Of course I have challenges and we can turn them into opportunities.
My websites are: www.JanieMartinSings.com and www.hypnosis.net Not to promote myself but just to show by example that we can change ourselves and our lives.

I became a hypnotist to help and teach people how they too can change their lives. I only just retired from it all to perhaps do talks locally about the power of the mind and what hypnosis is and how you create with your Imagination.

So here is to the man who asked for and got all that money for his photograph because he believed. "Pray asking as though it is already done" to quote Jesus a great teacher who said "Have I not said and is it now written Ye are all Gods. These things you see me do you can do also if you believe (Imagine)
Thank you,
Janie Martin

This is a photo of a potato. It sold for $1,000,000.

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This is a photo of a potato. It sold for $1,000,000.

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