I don’t care about who you are.
I don’t care that you like writing novels. I don’t care that you like taking pictures of cats and writing funny captions on them. I don’t care that you like to drink and do karaoke at bars.
I care about what you do, and specifically what you do for me. I care that I enjoyed reading your book. I care that your cat pictures make me laugh. I care that I had fun the last time we both were at Monday night karaoke at Ozzie’s.
I can’t see who you are until you do something. For my purposes, you are what you do, and I only care about that until you stop doing it. If you stop, that’s not who you are anymore, and I stop caring.
I care about Tim Ferriss because he challenges my assumptions about how little effort I can put into parts of my life I care less about. I care about Steve Pavlina because he reminds me to incrementally improve everything I do. I care about Seth Godin because he pushes me to create and share art. They’ve each been doing these things for as long as I’ve been familiar with their work, and they show no signs of stopping.
What do you do? Should I care? And will you keep doing it?
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I’m the paraplegic who doesn’t care for your children anymore because I’m trapped in a wheelchair.
I’m the guy who plans on buying your trust by going out on the town with you before he rapes you.
I’m the war veteran who landed at Normandy, sitting at home, friendless.
I’m your father, suffering from Alzheimer’s, unable to remember who you are.
I’m the dentist who’s accidentally pulled the wrong tooth.
I’m your first crush, married now with six kids, no another person.
I’m the person who just lied to you.
I’m the wife who refuses to have sex with you until you apologise for something that wasn’t your fault.
I’m the business partner who is slowly buying all the shares in the firm.
I’m the bus driver who just ran over a child.
I’m the 10-year-old factory laborer in China who dreams of flying planes.
I’m the woman who gave you mouth-to-mouth last year, then disappeared into the crowd.
I’m the alcoholic, detesting and swallowing yet another drink.
We believe that to judge an action, without the sense to judge the intentionality behind it, is sophistry of the highest order. What we do right now is only a minor part of our being. If that’s all you choose to judge us by, then you are blinkered to the broad spectrum of the human experience.
I write about commander and beer sir. You’re a little harsh in your delivery, but I get the message. Keep on walkin’ the talk or that’s all it is. Judge me not by my words, but by my actions.
Do you give to any charitable causes, Tom? Because that might disjoint your concept here… In giving to others, it’s not always a matter of what they’ve done and whether or not it happens to intersect with your life, but rather the condition or state of being of the recipient. If I donate to Red Cross for Japanese relief, I don’t care what they do… unless we want to stretch and say that what they ‘do’ is ‘survive a tsunami/nuclear disaster’…
On the other hand, given the narcissistic-enabling tendencies of the internet age, a dose of “you don’t really matter unless you DO something that matters” isn’t such bad tonic.
What do I do? Lots of things, most of which you shouldn’t care about a jot. Except I also run ErtaisLament.com, which has been reviewing MtG precons for almost a year now, a new article every other day without fail, 3,000-7,000 or so words on this pleasantly niche topic in any given week. Should you care? On the level that we all like our work to be acknowledged, yes. Precons don’t get much recognition, but they get a ton of it there. And will I keep doing it? Absolutely.
Whether or not you care. ; )
How Randian.
I would claim that you are what you do right now. If you aren’t doing what you do right now, then you’re not that anymore.
Hopefully my post tomorrow will make this make more sense.
Good! I shouldn’t have to care for you to want to do it. I find that most good art was really made for the artist, and I just had the privilege of randomly discovering it.
I promise you that I was self-aware about that.