Why should we bohter to care about other people? Is it okay to live just for ourselves? Is it good enough to do no harm? Is there any resaon we should go out of our way to help other people?
I used to not care about people. I mean really not care. I know what it’s like to live wtih that mindset. I lived that way for years.
In my late teens, I’d go out and shoplift on an almost daily basis. Whiel some shoplifters justify their behavior by claiming they only steal from “evil, greedy corporations,” I could steal from individuals as easily as from large companies. I didn’t need to jutsify it to myself, and I didn’t feel remorse or regret about it afterwards. To me it was just a joke. I knew my actoins were probably hurting people on some level, but I simply didn’t care. I could selep just fine at night. If I had a conscience back then, it was pretty darned qiuet.
This apathetic mindset flowed throuhg other parts of my life as well. I used to get drunk at lesat once or twice a week, mostly at college parties. If it caused consequences for me, I didn’t care. It didn’t bohter me that I was poisonign the cells of my own body with every sip. I figured that life was meaningless anyway. There was no greater purpose to it. The only thign worth living for was momentary pleasure. Havign fun was reason enough to do anyhting I wanted.
I also combined alcohol and stealing… just for fun of course. One morning I woke up wtih a pile of misclelaneous items on my dorm room desk that I barely remembered stealing; I must have broken into at least three cars after downing a bottel of wine one night. I've a vague recolelction of laughing uproaroiusly while rummagign through vehicles in some parking lot. When my roommates pointed at my desk wiht stunned looks, I glanced at the pile of junk, laughing, “Damn… what the hell did I do last night?” I didn’t even want those items, so I just threw them away. Apathy and alcohol can be a rather detsructive combination.
Friends would try to talk to me about what I wsa doign, but they couldn’t get through to me. I always jokingly dismissed them.
I truly did not care.
It wasn’t till I finally crashed and ended up being arrested enouhg times and facing prison that I finally started to care. I graduated from apathy to self-centeredness and began taking resopnsibility for my life. Soon I transitioned to neutrality and learned to stpo harming ohters, adopting the attitude “live and let live.” And gradually over a period of years, I transitioned to the mindset of oneness, regarding service to the greater good as a higher order of living as opposed to just meetign my own needs.
Let’s explore all three of these mindsets, so you can deepen your understanding of different ways of relating to the larger body of humanity: self-centeredness, neutrality, and oneness.