To Care or Not To Care

Do I care too much? Or not enough? Or...at all?

This semester, I’ve decided to embark on a journey to redefine, reconfigure, reshape how I perceive care. To care, to be caring, careful, careless, to care for, to care about, etc, etc, etc.

Here are some groups of questions (in no particular order) I have about caring. I hope to explore some of these throughout the next few months.

1 - What is my current definition of to care? How does care show up in collective, radical forms? Can care even be radical? The versions of “caring” I’ve so clearly separated in my own mind - maybe they’re not so different, after all. How does “caring” interact with gender, race, sexuality, and how does caring show up in my own life, relationships, beliefs, and growth?

2 - What does caring less - or more - look like? Do I want to care less about certain things, people, places, ideas, and care more about others? Why?

3- Why is caring sometimes…cringe, too much, too overpowering, a sign of unwanted vulnerability? On the other hand, why do I feel like I don’t care enough? Why do we turn off the news when we see something sad or overwhelming or heartbreaking - is it because we don’t care to care?

How do we learn to care…to care. I feel as though I’ve lost it, my intuitive sense of care, but I’m determined to find it again (I’m sure it was never actually gone!).

And finally, 4 - Why do I care about caring? What has/is moving me to write, to verbalize these thoughts about a tiny little four letter word? All I know for sure, in these beginning stages, is that the word “care” keeps popping up everywhere around me: in my notes app, in lectures, in conversations, in my dreams, perhaps in yours.

Does anyone else care? Will anyone else care?

Who knows. We’ll see, I guess. All we can do is hope.

The plan is to write a piece a week - maybe one every other week. Who knows!

Xx,

Alaire

(Hah. My name conveniently rhymes with care. Oh, goodie!)