CARE ENOUGH WHEN IT MATTERS, OR . . .

Does anyone care enough? Yes? No? Depends?

Ask someone who cares about everything, all the time, with every fiber in their soul, blah, blah, blah.

They care, just ask them.

How can anyone care so much about so many things? What’s the secret?

Please continue:

The manliest of men care about things.

Even if they say things like, “I don’t care.” They care.

After they say, “I could care less?” They care.

“Here’s a quarter, go call someone who cares.”

They care, but take the quarter anyway.

After establishing care credentials, the big question is, ‘do they care enough,’ as if caring were a sporting event with a scoreboard.

At this early point, dear reader, you may be asking, ‘If caring were an event, who is the scorekeeper?’

The only proper scorekeepers are those who care more about everything worth caring about than anyone else.

So, who are they? Just ask someone you suspect of being infected by the caring bug.

Be sure to block out a few hours for the answer. Maybe a lifetime.

 

The secret of Super Caring people is their audience; they think their audience could care less.

Take my wife, please. She’s been targeted for caring more than once and I’ve come to the rescue.

By the way, that’s what husbands do when their wife gets heckled about something she cares about.

I jump right in there, whether I agree with her or not, right or wrong, because why not?

She’s never asks for my help in much of anything; that’s what you get with a feisty wife.

She is strong in her convictions and unafraid to speak up.

What’s the problem? She has the opinion that I don’t care enough.

 

Her: You never look at the changing landscape of brilliant colors with fall in the air and trees that become an abstract painter’s canvas spread across the mountains and valleys like the quaking aspen in Santa Fe.

Me: Yes, I do.

Wife: You never taste the subtle hints of fine wine paired with the delicate flavors of farm fresh organic vegetables and free roaming pasture-raised chicken.

Me: Yes, I do, but tell me more about me.

 

And she did. She does. Does she ever.

 

Big Care Bubble 

People who care enough bring something extra to every day.

I care enough to write this blog, and boomerpdx cares enough if you copy and paste the link where you think a post might help someone.

Help them do what?

When helping someone is my writing goal, and it is, I intend to reach people who think their dreams are out of reach and it’s foolish to waste another minute in pursuit.

The plain facts are that writing dreams are out of reach and it is foolish to pursue them. At some point.

In the meantime, look around and tell me everyone doesn’t want to be somebody else.

Rock star, athlete, author, actor, adventurer, mountain climber, marathon runner; it’s an open door.

Columnist, poet, playwright, novelist, short story writer, screen writer, copy writer, museum cataloguer, grant writer.

Blogger?

A blogger can create and respond based on the world around them at any particular time.

And care about that world. It is ingrained in the work. I couldn’t write if I didn’t give a damn.

 

Wife: Maybe you should write about setting goals and overcoming obstacles.

Me: Good one. Like I did in the marathon with butt-cheek rash in my shorts and new-insole fire in my shoes.

Wife: What?

 

When I did get married and have kids, my biggest emotional callouses turned into armor.

I stood up for my wife and kids with a vengeance outsiders had a hard time understanding.

A relative shit talked my wife to the point she decided to wait in the car.

We’d stopped for a visit when his wife wasn’t home and he took the liberty to have his fun.

With the wife in the car I took the liberty to tell him if he decided to go at her again I’d put him on the ground until he ate his share of gravel for lunch, with more for desert.

Oddly enough we weren’t invited back.

My goal with my kids was raising them as a married couple, not as a weekend parent with the question hanging over their head of, ‘What’s wrong with you?’

They grew up with the freedom to shit talk or not to shit talk, but to know the difference.

Now that they’re married with kids, they know the difference first hand.

More important, they grew up knowing they were ‘good enough.’

 

“I Have A Dream”

The job for the husband/father is to smooth the water in the storms of life, and not complain too much when they are cold and wet.

It’s a job that requires trust, loyalty, love, kindness, caring, and everything else.

It’s also a job of dispensing important history when needed.

On a day when you’re not feeling up to it, not up to fulfilling your potential, breaking new ground, making important discoveries.

When it’s all too much, reflect on the journey you’ve taken.

Instead of ‘why don’t I do more,’ give yourself credit for what you’ve done and make plans to do more.

Instead of, ‘why is everyone further along in their lives than me,’ look where you came from, how you got there, and think of a new way forward.

Instead of asking why the world is suddenly spinning out of control, read one of the greatest speeches ever given.

Call it caring enough with Dr. King:

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.