And Then I Grew Up. . .

The Real Power of "Not Caring"

In the Beginning. . .

Some of my earliest memories are of being enraged. After years of therapy I’m beginning to get a sense of perhaps/maybe/time will tell/possibly why this is the case. The parenting I received, or didn’t plays a part, but I’ve never seen it as THE answer. And now that I have a kiddo of my own I’m even more convinced it wasn’t completely my parents fault.

Just the other morning, my son wasn’t getting his way about something or other and he growled at me (literally) and said, “We gonna fight!” I’m pretty sure he meant it. Immediately two thoughts came to mind (in no particular order); one, you will lose little man; two, where is this coming from?

I’m not so naive as to think the struggles I have with anger, frustration, and depression don’t affect him. So, I’m not blameless. Kids pick up on so much more than we know. But at the same time, and I say this with an overly self-critical eye, I do a decent job of insulating him from the more severe consequences of my demons. And yet . . . there it is . . . something akin to the rage I felt growing up.

Part of me is sure some of this is just being three, learning to navigate the world by exploring various emotional responses to situations in order to gauge their impact, and the reality that being three fucking sucks. All of this led me to say, “We’re not going to fight doodle bug.”

But then I got to thinking . . . .

Toddlers, Toddlers, Toddlers Everywhere. . .

The more I hang out with toddlers, the more I’m convinced the majority of adults have never grown up. I’m dead serious. I hang out with parents (on occasion and when forced), and more often than not they look at me when our kids, or some other kids, are acting like kids with the exasperated, exhausted look of parenthood and say something along the lines of, “Kids?!?! Am I right?” To which I say, “Sure. But they’re kids. It’s how they’re suppose to act. Have you ever stopped to think about how the things you do aren’t all that different? In fact, how they are nearly the same?” This is an excellent way to end the conversation, and yet another example of why my wife can’t have nice things. I can be insufferable.

I kid . . . sort of . . . my wife has many nice things; I’m only partially responsible for one of them . . . but not about the conversation killing, or the insufferability . . . that shit’s for real. There are two reasons for this. One, people don’t like to think (specifically about themselves). Two, even the briefest of surveys into one’s life has the potential to reveal uneasy similarities and most opt out before it gets weird. Oddly enough, I have more respect for the non-thinkers. You’re not obliged to form an opinion about everything (more on this below). So, maybe that’s what they’re doing when they’re choosing not to think, however unlikely. Either way, I give them the benefit of the doubt. But the others . . . well, if you start to think but stop because it’s scary when things hit too close to home . . . I don’t hold out much hope for you.

Who Runs the World. . .

With all due respect to Beyonce, I think she got it wrong. Heck, I’m pretty sure boy/girl is irrelevant at this point, since everyone pretty much acts the same. I’m convinced we’re living in a real world version of Lord of the Flies, although I grant those kids’ maturity levels were several years ahead of what we’re dealing with today.

The thing which makes this so hard to see and why I think more people don’t talk about it is its sheer ubiquity. It’s like the fish trying to describe the water. Not convinced? What do you say we take a brief tour through our political environment as a kind of snapshot and examine how both Lefties and Righties, who have gone to great lengths to “make America great again” and ensure that “science matters,” exhibit a level of maturity routinely displayed on the playground?

One of the clearest expressions of toddler level behavior, equally displayed by both Lefties and Righties (aside from the coining of great slogans . . . personally I’ve always been partial to “I’m rubber, you’re glue,” but to each their own), is in their reliance on emotional reasoning. If you want a thoroughly studious discussion of this, I suggest you check out The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. I assure you my treatment won’t be as thorough.

Emotional reasoning is a cognitive process whereby you conclude something is true because you think, or feel, it must be so. This is classic toddler level analysis which is fine when you’re three, but far less appealing much past that point, in part because it seems it may be detrimental to the fabric and function of society. The most famous example from Righties would probably be that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. For the Lefties, the insistence on the reality of systemic racism or gender identity fits the bill.

Emotional reasoning also influences how we discourse with each other. No longer are we concerned with ideas, thoughts, or arguments. The truth or falsity of a position is determined solely on whether or not we like the person, or better yet, if they’re on “our” side. This focus on “style” over “substance” is not dissimilar to when my three year old, who when not wanting to fight me, is convinced if he doesn’t like something that it is “no good, the worst, most horriblest of all things in the whole wide world.” In a more perfect union, our interactions would have progressed past the point of popularity contests, but there is little indication we’re heading in that direction.

Rather both sides find themselves subjected to personal ridicule and dismissal instead of engagement on the issues themselves. It appears we may no longer even have the ability to deal with an issue once we have feelings about it. Time will only tell. But the trend has taken us towards greater and greater identification with our thoughts and feelings to the point where I don’t think the majority know where they begin and end. Again, completely acceptable for a three year old, but far less flattering once you’ve hit puberty.

Finally, how we go about responding to this treatment also reeks of toddlerhood’s emotional rollercoaster rationale. Imagine for a second how you’d like to be treated if you were the victim of ridicule, dismissal, and belittlement? Now, take a look around you. Do you see any of that going on? How do you respond when someone who doesn’t think like you is debased in front of you, or in conversation with your friends? Do you come to their defense? Do you try to see their side? Do you, at the very least, think about how they must feel? I’m guessing not.

And so without adults in the room to set proper boundaries, we respond to the “Are too/Am Not!” playground back and forth with more entrenchment and defiance. For the Righties labeled “deplorables” this means leaning in hard to the label and creating and flying yet another flag. Lefties turn their noses up at all the flags in favor of front yard placards and bumper stickers (they can’t be seen giving into such base level “flag waving” instincts), all the while virtue signaling whenever and however possible to each other less they fall victim to the purification practice of “canceling” so effectively wielded by the Leftie hierarchy.

(Brief aside: has it occurred to anyone else that “canceling” is no different to when Michael Scott walks into Dunder Mifflin and declares bankruptcy by screaming, “I declare bankruptcy!”? I mean, it’s just a bunch of people deciding that someone has done something, whether in practice or theory really doesn’t matter, and then everybody jumping on the bandwagon. Ask yourself, just as if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, what happens if someone is “canceled” and no one listened?)

By the way, none of this is meant to imply in any way that the concerns, fears, anger, and frustrations of both sides aren’t real. Emotions are real. They just aren’t the truth. And they most certainly should not rule the day, our decisions, our behaviors, or our interactions.

Last, but definitely not least, and bringing us full circle back to the rage of the toddler, is the tendency to cast everything in terms of a fight. It may come as a surprise to some of you, but not everything needs to be a fight, which you’d be hard pressed to realize with all the wars going on these days. No. I’m not talking about actual wars where people are actually getting killed, unless of course you can show me the latest body count from an onslaught of “microaggressions,” or a causality list from the War on Christmas. These wars are the never-ending cultural wars which exist only in our hearts and minds and consume our lives. It seems every time you turn around there is a new “battle front” being opened on the nightly news, or more likely the pages of social media. It’s an “us against them” world out there folks and, if you don’t mind me saying, it’s insane.

Why? Because, first and foremost, it’s just not accurate. There are no real wars going on in America. At least not yet. And this is true whether the spin of the purported conflict is positive or negative. So, just as there is no war on women, their bodies, or their reproductive rights, there is also no war on poverty, or homelessness; no matter how much Lefties believe they are “fighting the good fight.” Likewise, there is no war on Christmas, or anything associated with Christianity and Righties are not wagging a war against homosexuality and gender identity regardless of how much they would like to.

“No duh,” you say. But really? Are you sure? Because I’m not, especially when I see the degree to which people defend their positions. If they don’t think they are a matter of life and death, you sure could’ve fooled me. But, okay. Let’s assume you’re right and they don’t see themselves engaged in a battle of epic proportions. Then, why? What’s the deal with describing things this way? And have you stopped to think about the effects of characterizing disagreements this way? If not, maybe you should, because they aren’t good.

Painting our differing opinions and positions in the language of war and conflict reinforces the notion that these issues truly are a matter of survival (this gets even messier when people decide to wrap up their identity in them), when they aren’t. Far from it. Furthermore, it creates “enemies” when really there are only people on the other side. People who may not agree with you, or you with them, but still only people. But once you are facing off against an enemy it becomes a situation where only one person can win. It’s a zero sum game acting as if though Highlander (THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!) makes sense in the real world. I, for one, am not convinced. The rhetoric of war creates division and sets up a situation whereby we begin to see our fellow citizens as less than human and less worthy of basic respect and decency. And finally, (bear with me . . . even I’m getting exhausted by this list of drawbacks), we create a situation where we must now exist in a constant, never-ending state of high alert, ready to defend or fight at the drop of a hat because . . . well, because of the monster we created. This shit is hard on your adrenals, trust me, coming from someone who has spent the majority of his adult life in “fight or flight.”

So, what’s the solution? How do we step away? How do we stop the insanity, the feet stomping, the whining, the temper tantrums, and bring reason back to the world and our lives? In short, we grow up. How? Well, for starters, we stop caring so damn much.

Try Not Caring So Much. . .

I get it, the thought of “not caring” can be a bit triggering. “What will people think of me?” “I really want to make a difference.” “If we all stop caring, then ‘they’ will win.” “I don’t give up.” These are just some of the thoughts that rush through our minds when confronted with the prospect of caring a little less. They’re understandable, but ultimately not true. This is partially because they traffic in an understanding of “not caring” closely associated with apathy, which in and of itself carries quite a bit of baggage in our minds.

There are a couple of things to say about this. Don’t let this baggage be the last word on the matter. There might be times when if done right, at the right time, and in the right way you could utilize this baggage to great effect. There can be a real power and great joy associated with a strategically placed “I don’t care.” But ultimately, this is not the “not caring” I’m suggesting. It’s rarely the sense in which I use it, which begs the question, what else can it mean? The way I see it, there are at least three ways you can “not care” and two of them are important for the process of growing up.

First, the obvious one. As mentioned above, this “not caring” is apathy. Apathy is defined by a lack of feeling, a disinterest, or a state of indifference where concern is suppressed or totally absent. This “not caring” is fairly negative and it’s easy to see why people have a strong response to someone who expresses, or who they assume is expressing, it about serious situations (of course, what counts as “serious” is itself debatable). Personally, I think apathy gets a bad rap and there are ways in which one could understand it in a more positive, less irresponsible, way. But for now, let’s just say it’s the lowest, least evolved, and least mature version of “not caring.” Allowing for the fact that its real power is in its shock value, using it either to end a conversation or to pry open an overly rigid one (say for example in the case of “canceling”).

A step up from apathy is the “not caring” of resignation. Resignation sits halfway between apathy and the most evolved expressions of “not caring.” Mixed in qualities, resignation retains hints of apathy in that one is still more or less indifferent, but without the active stifling of emotion. In resignation one acknowledges the situation, but their “not caring” comes from knowing that there’s very little they can do to bring about a change. This degree of acknowledgement along with the recognition of inevitability makes resignation a place to linger, to sit with things instead of feeling impelled to act to “fix” them. It offers space for one to sit and think, even ponder, without jumping into the fray, but it still has a bit of an Eeyore quality to it, a bit too much “victimization” if you like. It’s these qualities which prevent it from being the fullest, most positive expression of “not caring” possible. And ideally, the one we can attain, or at the very least strive towards.

The expression of “not caring” which I think sits at the pinnacle of this hierarchy, pure and untainted with tinges of neglect or withdraw, is acceptance. It should be said, I believe, that resignation and acceptance sit quite close to each other. So close that it might be quite difficult for those observing from the outside to know whether someone is simply resigned or accepting. It might even be hard for the individual themselves to know for certain. The main reason for this is that the crucial differentiating factor between them lies primarily within the internal state of the individual. This is not meant to imply that the qualitative difference between them is not meaningful. Quite the contrary. Unlike with resignation, the “not caring” of acceptance is pure and unburdened. There is no sense of “helplessness” associated with acceptance, but instead realization. The individual who says “I don’t care” from a place of acceptance in essence “consents” to a state of affairs devoid of agreement or disagreement. There is a “knowing how things are” and a tolerance, or you might say, simply the having of “no opinion.”

And, it turns out, not having an opinion can actually be a very good thing, not to mention a liberating one. Not having an opinion, or acceptance, was something very near and dear to the hearts of the Stoics. As Marcus Aurelius writes in his Meditations:

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”

And it is this which lays the foundation of being a “grown up.”

Growing Up is Hard. . .

So there you have it. The secret to growing up is finding a way to not get out of sorts about things you can’t control, opting not to involve yourself in things which truly don’t matter, which it turns out, are quite a few things. The vast majority of them in fact. The list of things you can’t control is so long it makes more sense to list the things, or better said, the one thing you can control: your mind (or perhaps at the very least your opinions). You are always in control of these. Always free to change it or them. Always free to choose a different one, to think differently, to think otherwise, or to not think at all as it were, which given the nature of the world just might be the sanest option.

Reality is that things happen. They take a particular form. They benefit some and harm others. They are good. They are bad. There is no telling what will transpire or where you will end up at the end of the day. You are free to turn yourself into knots about these things, people, and circumstances, it’s a free world after all. But if you choose to do so about those things outside your control, then you should at the very least take full ownership of the discomfort, anger, frustration, sadness, offense, harm, etc. you feel as yours and yours alone.

I have been accused of many things in my life, but none more often than that “I don’t care.” And I am guilty as charged (some days more successfully than others). This isn’t always easy or well-received, either because people think I’m pessimistic, or based on my apparent nonchalance they are reminded of just how little control they have over their lives and life in general. I appreciate this. It’s totally understandable, in the same way that I understand why my toddler wants to throw down two out of every three mornings. He is not in control of anything. Everything is literally outside his control, including his emotions due to a underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. So of course he’s angry. He has all these thoughts, feelings, and desires with almost no way to express them effectively, make sense of them internally, or satisfy them independently.

Unfortunately, you and I don’t have the same excuse. We can’t blame a lack of brain development for our choices. Our deficiencies stem from something else entirely, an improper use of our reason. This shit is all on us, like it or not. We have the ability to see what’s within our control and what lies outside it, and we can choose to focus on the latter to our detriment, thereby setting ourselves up to continue living like three year olds way past the point of necessity, or we can choose differently.

What’s stopping us from making this “better” choice? Surely, some of it has to be because growing up is hard work. It hurts. There are associated pains and what have you. Sometimes it’s even a “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” situation. And let’s not forget, that while it certainly sucks to be three, being an adult is not all it’s cracked up to be either.

Some of us are also not comfortable “walking away” from “our” issues (you see what I did there?). We are apprehensive, or even afraid, that if we don’t put ourselves into the fight to “end racism,” “stop global warming,” “stop the steal,” “protect the unborn,” etc, etc, etc, that “nothing will get done” or we’ll simply be sitting idly by while the world implodes. But this isn’t true, not by a long shot. It supposes a level of control outside the bounds of normal, or even exceptional, human capability. We’re not going to stop global warming or end racism. We’re not going to overturn the 2020 election or end abortion. It’s not possible. The desire to “do something” is both understandable and totally unrealistic at the same time. Things change and will continue to change long after we’re gone. And these changes, whether they go one way or the other are, more or less, 100% outside our sphere of influence. Sadly, we just aren’t that important.

Does this mean we should give up on the world and the issues we think important? Maybe become a monk? I mean, it’s an option, but not necessary. All that’s required is that we comport ourselves differently. That we change our minds and thereby how we think about things. It means we temper our fervor, our investment, our engagement in order to come from a “grown up” place where the things we do are measured, balanced, reasoned, detached, and by all means, not taken personally in any way whatsoever; in other words, with a healthy dose of “not caring.”

If we want to do good for the world and the people around us, then we need to focus our efforts where they will have the most impact: on our minds, our emotions, our relationships, and our character, and by all means, stop trying to throw fisticuffs when things don’t go our way.