Do You Care About Anyone or Anything?

Do you care about anyone besides yourself? Do you care about yourself? And do you care about anything?

I care about my psychologist maybe, im not sure what is caring about myself, i guess i care about my health but dont follow through because the care is not strong enough for actions.

I care about not being screwed over, for the sake of it alone, for exemple if somethings should be split equally i would care alot for geting my part, but the part itself usually doesnt matter to me, the fight for my rights matters

I think I care about a lot of things.

It might be a different type of caring, and it might manifest itself differently, but I still consider it caring.

I don't consider myself dispassionate or anhedonic. I want people to be happy. I want to be able to contribute to something good for people and for our little piece of universe.

I just have problems personalizing it in the way that other people do. And I don't like to wax poetic about any of it.

I'm not good at comforting people, or celebrating with them, or spending much time with them, and all of the things I listed drain my energy at a rate where I can't do them often. It creates the perception that I don't care.

But I like helping people out when I can. I like putting my effort into projects that can benefit people.

I like art and music and other creative pursuits. I like nature. I like science. I like learning new things.

Citymouse, what are you own answers to those questions?

For me:
I definitely care about things, but I can't tell whether my internal experience of caring is the same as other peoples. Certainly there are lots of times other people seem to be feeling a much wider range of more intensive emotions than I feel.

I care a lot about truth. It makes me angry when people don't care what is and isn't true, or when they conceal information because it is easier than being honest. I care a lot about people in a collective sense. I care about things being fair. I have strong left-leaning political opinions.

I have very little interest in most people. Very few people are reliably interesting enough to be worth the effort it takes to engage with them. I don't understand why I am expected to care about Person X just because they are related to person Y who is a friend of the person I'm currently talking to. Even if Person X was in a car crash, why should I care? I already know that car crashes happen to people. It isn't information. It isn't something I'm able to do something about. I'd much rather have a conversation about how to prevent car crashes generally than hear how this one has personally affected someone I don't know.

There are a small number of people that I care a lot about. I want them to like me, and if they don't, even temporarily, I find that quite difficult. The number of people this applies to is much smaller than the number of people I am socially supposed to care a lot about. Even with them, I'm still not sure I feel as strongly as most people do. Either that, or people exaggerate a lot, constantly, about how they feel. I'm not sure I've ever wanted to hug someone. I've learned the behaviour, but it took a lot of practice.

I don't know if I care about myself. I'm not sure what that means. I care about achieving things, particularly my academic writing. I don't enjoy getting physically hurt. I get annoyed at myself - does that count?

I have one person I truly care about, plus my dog. I do really care about my job though, it's a big part of who I am, and it's always interesting.

It's better not to care, isn't it? Then you don't feel loss. It's definitely that way about work. If you care you could go nuts.

Loss? Like what? When things don't go your way or when people leave?

I don't know that loss is a function of caring about other things. I think it's a function of self-interest, no?

My feelings towards others and myself are somewhat ambivalent. I care about those that I love and really all people in a general sense as well; but at the same time, knowing that it's eventually all going to fall apart makes me feel detached from others and even from my sense of self.

AArgon wrote:It's better not to care, isn't it? Then you don't feel loss. It's definitely that way about work. If you care you could go nuts.

I suppose I'm always preparing myself for that hurt of loss.

I care about my family. They are the few people in this world whose well being i put above my own.
For everything else, it comes down to "what will it cost me?" I have to look after my things to a degree (eg car) because i need them and if they break i will have to spend time and money to fix them.
The same goes with my physical health. I care just enough to avoid illness/injury.
The same goes for my job. I need to do enough to not get fired.

I care about my daughter.

I find it hard to understand about care and all that sort of stuff so I have to look at it in a different way like: would I miss her if she wasn't her? Answer is Yes so that makes me think that I must care.

When I was a child I didn't care or even love anyone. I can remember tell this to adults but they told me this was normal so I presumed I was normal but I think I was misinformed.

I literally didn't love my parents, my siblings, or anyone. The only person I felt any kind of bond with was my brother but I still found it easy to walk out of his life and I didn't grieve for him when he died.

I find it really easy to like people and I can have a lot of fun with people but I find it just as easy to walk away and never look back.