Seeing #1 p. 127

Akiko Busch poses the broad question, "What gives ordinary objects their value?" This seems to epitomize what a thesis idea is, as apposed to a thesis statement. Of course this question is vague in the sense that it will produce a multitude of different answers, all right in their own ways.
In my Economics class last year, we were presented with a term called the paradox of value. Generally, it is how we as humans assign some value to objects not necessarily based off of their use, but rather their importance to us as individuals or as a society. Paradox of value is used to explain why something like water, which we all need to survive, is relatively cheap yet diamonds, which are of course an unnecessary luxury, are very expensive. Later this tied into a multitude of economic ideas such as want and demand and other concepts which I personally find very dry. However, it seems that Busch's main answer to her question explores this idea in the sense that it is always the humans who naturally assign value to objects.
Busch uses a wide arrange of examples to draw attention to and flesh out her points. Objects tell a story about their owners, that is why we find a need to collect. They hold function as well as emotions. Objects are even used to show how we care for others, or perhaps don't care. They define us, and we naturally let them do so.
This concept of conveying ourselves through the objects we posses seems very logical. Objects seem to help define what is tangible and abstract about ourselves. What we choose to give value to is supposed to be a representation of ourselves. For example, I posses a few pieces of jewelry I could not bear to take off. I have a few gold pieces (a necklace, a ring, a set of hoop earrings) I wear everyday because they were given to me by my mother. In contrast, I also wear a small black string bracelet with little metal balls given to me by my father. Clearly their economic values are very different, but because they are both from my parents, whom I love equally, I thus assign equal value to both objects.