What do I care about?

[trenton]

I have contemplated many questions in a journal, but this one turned out to be much more threatening than expected.  This question is actually useful if somebody contemplated a question like "how am I full of shit?". In this case I realized that I care more about preserving my identity as a person who cares about the thing than I do the thing itself which I claim to care about.  This is why acting as if I care about things which I don't care about is considered bullshit and all of the justifications are considered the shit which I am full of.  One good example would be if I claim to care about truth, but actually I care more about preserving the identity as somebody who cares about truth especially if it benefits my survival.  There are many more examples everywhere.

I also learned the source of one of my pet peeves.  This would be moral righteousness.  In this case moral righteousness comes about when I am seeking to preserve my identity which is why this stance of moral is a mask which is actually selfish.  There are many good examples in politics.  The most clear is a transgender female demanding to be called ma'am.  If somebody by mistake or on purpose calls her sir, then she will get angry and morally righteous because she wants to preserve her identity as a transgender female.  This leads to a lot of difficult questions like "do I actually care about any of these issues, or do I just care about my identity and my righteousness?"  If I claim to care about an issue, then the actions I take become a projection of the desired identity.

Taking this into account, what do I actually care about?  Do I actually care about anything or nothing at all?  How do I tell if I care about something?

On one last funny note.  You can a imagine a politician like Bernie Sanders coming out and ending an inspirational speech with "...so we can preserve our identity as the American people!  Thank you very much."

[mandyjw]

You actually care about the one thing that doesn't need you to care about it, it just is, and it is also you.