You look at a thing / person / idea / phenomenon,

and you CARE,

or DON’T care

 

You can choose to CARE

in which case you will provide that thing with more attention,

more effort in your actions,

more thoughtfulness and respect in how you consider that thing,

and it can result in some minimum token of care, the “checking of the box”, vs not caring at all,

or it can result in you truly celebrating that thing, honouring it, presenting something lovely, special ,

or it can still result in utter mediocrity, insulting mediocrity, despite modicum of care you ostensibly provided

 

Then there’s the choosing to NOT care

To choose — one must first be aware

Therefore you’re aware of various options and maybe expectations — but are nevertheless choosing to not waste time on it

 

There’s the third option — in which you can’t choose to care, or not to care

It’s when you’re not ever AWARE of the subject

This typically results in catastrophic negligence

But it can actually also result in high quality of care and attention — just reflexive and habitual

But usually it’s insidious

When someone so deeply DOESN’T CARE that they are not faking it, they genuinely are utterly oblivious to it — it typically speaks to some pathology

 

Now

When you DON’T CARE about something that SOMEONE ELSE REALLY CARES ABOUT — you obviously are AGREEING to that person thus CARING a bit less about you

This is the consequence

 

You’re choosing to reject some of the VALUES that person has

Which can be benign, inconsequential.

Maybe those values are not pertinent to this relationship

Or it can be crucial and impair the relationship

Because those values are necessary for the realisation of the goals of that relationship

 

Of course it goes both ways,

AS A PERSON — you also CHOOSE to what degree you CARE ABOUT OTHERS CARING

and can choose to keep them, or find someone who CARES about your values

And then of course all kinds of meta-considerations, e.g. maybe you CARE about someone else NOT caring about you NOT caring

Maybe you care if they SOMETIMES cut you some slack, for not caring as much as they do, about something

Etc.

 

Of course the aforementioned pathological case when someone is NOT EVEN AWARE of something to care for — is worst of all,

Because it’s very hard to conceive that someone is just utterly blind

So when that subject becomes important, when it becomes important that BOTH of you CARE about that subject,

you will find yourself startled by the impossibility of imparting, explaining the gravity and importance of that thing, to that person that doesn’t even see that thing

Ironically,

If from the start it is clear in a relationship who cares about WHAT — such problems should never arise.

And people who obstinately and evidently reveal their LACK OF CARE for some things — leave no false expectations regarding their care for those things in the future

 

This is all there is to CARE, actually

You CARE for things because you value them, you want to retain them, protect them, nurture them

Or you want to yet acquire them, for the same reasons

It’s really not so complicated,

And then merely one level of abstraction higher — is that those things you CARE about attract you to others that CARE about similar things,

And those people that care about similar things are attracted to you

 

You thus evolve what you care about based on what you want, what you believe,

AND THEN based on people that you want in your life, again, for the same reason of them aligning with your values, benefiting each other and furthering each other’s goals,

And again, the default state is that what you SINCERELY CARE ABOUT should attract people who also sincerely care about those things — and you acquire those goals together,

But sometimes you can fundamentally align about some things you CARE about — while disagreeing in how those goals are reached = what DETAILS to care about,

In which case you can CHOOSE to care about what others care about, DESPITE not immediately seeing the reason why — but because you SEE that the deeper goal, deeper values are aligned

In which case you are perhaps already convinced to care a little bit more about something that you naturally are not so interested in

Because it could facilitate realisation of the goals you TRULY do care about

 

…and to take it home, with an example,

If you care about money, and want more of it, you’ll obviously save money,

For if you don’t save it, well, then you don’t have more of it, do you?

We can thus say you also care about saving, as a consequence of caring about having MORE money,

Now,

Someone else also cares about money,

But they don’t care about saving as much as you do,

They do care about earning,

You care about earning too — that’s obviously what enables saving

But you care more about saving than earning. He cares more about earning than saving,

And who is right?

Both of you are

And CARE is not mutually exclusive. You can care about many things strongly

You could thus learn from your friend about the importance of EARNING more

Maybe you don’t care about it nearly enough

Maybe you should try harder to further your career

And your friend, maybe he spends a little bit too much,

Maybe if he saved more, then invested — his net worth would grow much quicker

You could thus LEARN to care — from one another

 

This is a simple example but shows malleability of CARE,

It should first be genuine

If you pretend to care about something just to fit in — you’re betraying yourself

And yes, often you’re distracting yourself from what you should really be caring about,

But if you don’t care about something that others care about — do you have a good reason for it?

And if you don’t care about something that people you CARE ABOUT fucking care about — do you have a REALLY good reason for it?

Because maybe there’s an incongruence, CONFLICT, in how you go about the things you care about

Maybe you should learn from others to care more

Maybe there’s a reason for why people care about something

Maybe you should ALIGN more with what others care about, even superficially — if on a deeper level you ultimately ALIGN in what you CARE for, deeply

 

…or maybe not

Just be cognizant at all times of:

-what you sincerely CARE about

-what others CARE about

-WHEN you should care about what OTHERS care about