I Don't Care!

My parents were never the spoiling sort, though they always gave me books upon books to help me understand. To this day, a book is a treasure to me.

Maurice Sendak was a writer I knew from the earliest age, and I was much the better for it. Many of my young friends had records from all the best pop bands of the time, but I recall that the only record I had back then was an album by Carole King, "Really Rosie", where she performed songs based on Sendak stories.

I cherished that old LP.

It popped back into my awareness the other day, when I read a claim by a woman who called herself a "modern" Stoic.  "I am indifferent  to what you say," she was telling someone. "I choose not to make your opinion matter to me. You are a symptom of entropy."

Now that's never how I understood Stoicism, because I always thought the idea of being indifferent to circumstances did not include rejecting others. Yet I notice that the new trend of Stoic indifference now becomes a justification for not caring.

Good Lord, no. The Stoic cares. He cares for all things, and his indifference is never about casting someone aside, but about seeing that any situation is never good or bad in itself; it rather becomes good by what we make of it through our judgments and actions.

It is never a no. It is always a yes.

Yet people say, "I don't care!" What a heartless expression.

I have been a Catholic for my whole life, and I have seen people sell my Faith for their utility. I have embraced Stoicism for half that life, but I also see people make use of it for their convenience.

To say " I am indifferent to you" is never the same as saying "I am indifferent to what happens to me." I am called to love you, even as I must accept that the world will be as it is. Stoicism is never an excuse for hatred or dismissal.

This song has it right. The moral of Pierre is: CARE!

Carole King, "Pierre", from Really Rosie (1975)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCEBLHd0v6I

There was once a boy named Pierre
Who only would say, I don't care!
Read his story, my friend, for you'll find
At the end that a suitable
Moral lies there

One day his mother said
When Pierre climbed out of bed
-Good morning, darling boy, you are my only joy
Pierre said-I don't care!
-What would you like to eat?
-I don't care!
-Some lovely cream of wheat?
-I don't care!
-Don't sit backwards in your chair
-I don't care!
-Or pour syrup on your hair
-I don't care!
-You are acting like a clown
-I don't care!
-And we have to go to town
-I don't care!
-Don't you want to come, my dear?
-I don't care!
-Would you rather stay right here?
-I don't care!
So his mother left him there

His father said-Get off your head
Or I will march you up to bed!
Pierre said-I don't care!
-I would think that you could see -
-I don't care!
-Your head is where your feet should be!
-I don't care!
-If you keep standing upside down -
-I don't care!
-We'll never get to town
-I don't care!
-If only you would say, I care
-I don't care!
-I'd let you fold the folding chair
-I don't care!
So his parents left him there
They didn't take him anywhere

Now as the night began to fall
A hungry lion paid a call
He looked Pierre right in the eye
And asked him if he'd like to die
Pierre said-I don't care!
-I can eat you, don't you see?
-I don't care!
-And you will be inside of me
-I don't care!
-Then you will never have to bother -
-I don't care!
-With a mother and a father
-I don't care!
-Is that all you have to say?
-I don't care!
-Then I'll eat you, if I may
-I don't care!
So the lion ate Pierre

Arriving home at six o'clock
His parents had a dreadful shock!
They found the lion sick in bed and cried
-Pierre is surely dead!
They pulled the lion by the hair
They hit him with the folding chair
His mother asked-Where is Pierre?
The lion answered-I don't care!
His father said-Pierre's in there!

They rushed the lion into town
The doctor shook him up and down
And when the lion gave a roar
Pierre fell out upon the floor
He rubbed his eyes and scratched his head
And laughed because he wasn't dead
His mother cried and held him tight
His father asked-Are you allright?
Pierre said-I am feeling fine
Please take me home, it's half past nine

The lion said-If you would care
To climb on me, I'll take you there
Then everyone looked at Pierre
Who shouted-Yes, indeed, I care!
The lion took them home to rest
And stayed on as a weekend guest
The moral of Pierre is: CARE!