“It’s okay to care” - I repeat this mantra when I notice I’m stopping myself from caring.
I was a nerd and a bit of a social outcast growing up. Nothing too extreme, but enough to feel different and lonely at times. I was always interested and obsessed with things but when I’d go to share it I’d usually get a “who cares” kind of response. Eventually, this morphed into an internal edict: “It is not cool to care”. Liking something makes you vulnerable and I liked a lot of things.
I ended up going to a good college. Lots of math, art, philosophy, and film nerds—I met a lot of people who cared and it was great, but there was also a lot of “care-shaming” in a different direction. Namely, if you liked something that wasn’t nerd-approved or subversive enough it was very much not cool.
Sometimes I just want to watch baseball and unironically care about it. I had a lot of moments like “Yes yes I know that Chomsky said sports are just ‘training in irrational jingoism’ but please, just let me go to a bar and get excited about the Super Bowl without having to justify it.” Let me care in peace.
When someone cares about something harmless, I do whatever I can to let them have it, even if I don’t care about it.
“It’s okay to care” - I repeat this mantra when I notice I’m stopping myself from caring.
I was a nerd and a bit of a social outcast growing up. Nothing too extreme, but enough to feel different and lonely at times. I was always interested and obsessed with things but when I’d go to share it I’d usually get a “who cares” kind of response. Eventually, this morphed into an internal edict: “It is not cool to care”. Liking something makes you vulnerable and I liked a lot of things.
I ended up going to a good college. Lots of math, art, philosophy, and film nerds—I met a lot of people who cared and it was great, but there was also a lot of “care-shaming” in a different direction. Namely, if you liked something that wasn’t nerd-approved or subversive enough it was very much not cool.
Sometimes I just want to watch baseball and unironically care about it. I had a lot of moments like “Yes yes I know that Chomsky said sports are just ‘training in irrational jingoism’ but please, just let me go to a bar and get excited about the Super Bowl without having to justify it.” Let me care in peace.
When someone cares about something harmless, I do whatever I can to let them have it, even if I don’t care about it.