The Commercial “I Don’t Care”

Your bullshit credo

You convince yourself that you got it right.

Now that conviction follows you every step of the way.

Next thing you know, you’re writing articles, making videos, stuffing people’s ears and blinding friends with this self-assured conviction. The conviction that you adopted after a series of emotional triggers and said Enough! I am sick of caring about other people’s opinions, I will end this frustration now! You put a lid on everything that bothers you and run away, proclaiming your wisdom of inner freedom to the land.

I must say, Shepherd, it seems quite easy to find a comfortable ground to rest on when you are pissed off. Say I don’t care and base your essay or monologue on that, critiquing the standard 9 to 5 or the impediments of modern-day entrepreneurship. How easy and simple is this foundation, how easy it is to neglect your feelings and just not care. It’s also cool. You get sick of the judgmental external world, tired of the things that were making you frustrated and annoyed and scream To hell with this! I don’t want to care, I just want to escape! And so you escape.

You deal with it just like that, right? You just say goodbye and run away from whatever was bugging you.

Hmm, sounds kind of easy, kind of too good to be true.

I don’t believe you. How were you able to adapt such a strong and convincing ground of not giving a fuck? Seems like you jumped on the Freedom Train too soon, out of irritation. That pathetic grin on your face and the middle finger that you so proudly erect gives everything away. Doesn’t seem that you quite understood the essence of not caring. First off, it’s not about not caring about the external world. Your friends and family are in the external world, you drop those off as well? It’s about not being bothered by the external world. Being able to choose what to receive, setting boundaries and setting your own rules.

I don’t care.

So easy, so freeing.

So juvenile and cowardly.

So easy to convince yourself that you don’t give a shit. There is so much material to back up your claims. Seal the mouth of your inner voice with duct tape, the one that speaks about the things that you have left unresolved. You don’t even know what those things are at this point. Something… Something about caring. Blah, who gives a fuck. You got such a good, cozy and convincing ideology at hand, that it’s not worth spending time analyzing some stupid and naïve thoughts back from when you were emotional and fragile. You form a strong and hard façade that screams Fuck you, I don’t care! I am a cool and authentic personality to look up to. Fuck you to the world, and to that weakling of a person that you were before, who couldn’t bare the weight of other people’s useless opinions. You just gather the morally good stuff into your circle, friends, family and partner (if they’re lucky). The rest can fuck off.

You’re not supporting me? Fuck off.

You think I am a loser? Fuck off, I don’t care.

So easy.

Chew your cobwebs

Tell me something about how to care about this world. How to care about the haters, how to deal with the emotions that rise up when I am faced with this intense desire to care? Instead of throwing it all down a cliff, tell me how to set things right inside myself, how to complete the puzzle.

Your rational babble about how cool it is to not care and how small we all are to care in the grand scheme of all things does nothing for me. My feelings operate on different vibrations, and verbal convincing does nothing but dry my ears and bore me to death. Everyone can do that. Everyone can spit logical and clever justifications of their unique and authentic position. How about telling me how you actually shifted from this “weakling” who cared too much to the self-assured jackass marinated with cynicism? How about telling me how to do the hard labor of handling your own shit, instead of putting a lid on it?

Tell me how to love myself. Maybe then I will also learn how to love those opinionated people. And perhaps then, caring is no longer a problem, and you can keep moving forward without straying off course when people are shouting at you.

What seems extremely off, is that for such a cool guy like you, to have such an intense feeling of not caring seems rather shaky. Where’s your cool? Where’s the solid foundation that you have built above the noise of the world? If it was there beneath your feet, I’d be perfectly calm if I were you.

Hello fellow beautiful mole, throbbed down the pipeline! My name is Elliott, and I’m just reporting the latest news from up above the underground. Here in the catacombs, we issue a good dose of intellectual masturbation.

The Electric Pipeline is providing a perspective on the psychological human state and its dynamics, where the world’s heading, and what can the (wo)man in the mirror do about it. Thanks for reading and see you around!