Be Indifferent to What Makes No Difference


I love words and their definitions. I respect the ability to parse the nuances of meaning to effectively express oneself. And I, particularly, respect the ability to succinctly deliver an intellectual gut-punch as Marcus Aurelius does with the seven words of this title.

And the nuance here matters so much. To be clear… Indifference is a Cancer.

For the definition of Indifference, we turn to Oxford: lack of interest, concern, or sympathy

Look around… indifference is everywhere. Horrible, ugly, indifference. The current state of politics, where few participate, and those that do, work to the benefit of some tribal subset of the populace is an obvious example. At this point, standards have been lowered to levels once unthinkable, yet so many can’t even be bothered to vote. Consider schools, where year after year, adults (parents, teachers, administrators, politicians) fail students. And all too often those students give up, indifferent to their own futures, assuming the effort futile. Americans used to spend hours each day watching television. Now, we watch television AND spend additional hours scanning social media, playing games, and otherwise staring at phone screens. And here’s the rub… that is indifference! Indifference to what matters. Indifference to owning your own life. Indifference to becoming the best you that you can be in the short time allotted to you.

So, let’s parse the nuances of meaning… What Marcus is telling us is that the burden is on us to determine what matters and what does not matter. It’s on us to recognize that some things are worthy of our time, energy, and effort, while others will never be. And with that step, what can be a cancer growing on the things that matter, is made into a virtue when directed toward the unworthy.

There is an epidemic of anxiety as people compare themselves to the unreality of the lives of others, rather than their own goals and interests. Apparently, a bizarrely large percentage of the global population has seen Kim Kardashian’s ass on the internet. Seriously? That ass is aging like everyone else’s. Give it time… And people get so upset when others speak ill of them, yet if you’re unaware of the same, you don’t care. So why care if you do know? Negative words from small people fall into the “makes no difference” category. And the examples are endless.

Simple, yet brilliant. Once you’ve considered, be indifferent to what makes no difference.

*Not sure if I spelled “Kardashian” correctly, but you know what? It makes no difference…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Things Are Not Black and White

We want things to be simple. We want things to be… black and white. What we have seen over the last week or so is that “black and white” does not have to mean, either/or. Those marching in the streets for justice are black and white. Those police officers are black and white. At a time when too many in America have taken sides, many more have recognized that outrage is the only response to George Floyd’s death. And Breonna Taylor’s death. And… That outrage does not justify looting and burning the businesses of hard-working people who are doing the best they can to take care of their families. The actions of some officers have been nothing short of reprehensible and unacceptable. When officers fuel the protests, with what can reasonably be called violence, we fall far short of who we think we are as a nation. That does not justify shooting, stabbing, or running down police officers. And some officers have been nothing short of heroic and all have put themselves at risk. We have seen...
Read more

What Life Expects From Us

If you have not read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning , feel free to stop here and do so. While we are certainly going through challenging times, the details of life in Nazi concentration camps (he spent time in four, including Auschwitz) provide real perspective. But the book offers more than simply perspective. Frankl was also a brilliant neurologist and psychiatrist. His daily life became a study of man at his worst, but also at his best. It was a classroom of evil & despair with every student asking, “why”? Most of us have had some kind of existential crisis at some point in our lives. We have asked the litany of questions… Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? Or maybe it was faith found, faith questioned, faith lost, faith found again. Maybe you were convinced that you had to go “find yourself”. Whatever the case, we all want our limited time on Earth to matter. And we assume the answer is “out there” somewhere. The burden of man is that, whi...
Read more

The Color of Your Thoughts

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? You probably give yourself credit for being a realist. You see it. You get it. The problems and challenges of this world… you understand them. You’re actively predicting the future in your own head. Well, if so, that means you’re likely doing a rather poor job of two key things that can seriously impact the quality of your life… 1) living in the present moment & 2) focusing on what you can control. Are there challenges in the world, in our country, today, right now? Yes. Plenty. Is that new? No. But this is different? Crumbling financial markets, a growing pandemic; the world has never seen such as this. Never? Just try to imagine the world of roughly 100 years ago. World War I rages, followed by the Spanish flu, then Prohibition and the related violence, the Twenties roar, then the stock market crashes precipitating the Great Depression. Wow! All of that in a span of about 20 years, that was then followed by World War II. This is not to m...
Read more