Everything you ever wanted to know and some things you didn’t
How To Be Indifferent
This is where the big changes happen
--
Free link for non-members 👇
The first meaning of the word indifferent according to Merriam-Webster found here is:
1a: marked by a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for something : apathetic
indifferent to suffering and poverty
b: marked by no special liking for or dislike of something
indifferent about which task he was given
Well, shit! I need to turn my title into a question. I have no idea how to be indifferent. Let me think about this.
What could I possibly feel indifferent about?
Black olives.
I can take them or leave them.
I don’t hate them.
I won’t take them off a pizza if it happens to have them on there.
This is proving difficult. I genuinely don’t understand how people can compartmentalize in this way. Maybe it is a form of stoicism. I was never good at that one either. Indifference to pleasure or pain. How?
In the news lately, there have been some horrendous stories of hit and runs. One man on a bicycle who was knocked out of his shoes and succumbed to his injuries. Another, a father of newly born twins, lost the lower half of one of his legs due to his injuries.
My mind has trouble comprehending the horror of the news. That’s why I don’t watch it much.
I was upset the other day because I felt too sick to talk to the man putting up the siding on the back of my house and didn’t offer him water. Yesterday, I wrote him a note apologizing and thanking him for his hard work. I washed a jumbo metal water bottle, filled it with cold filtered water and ice cubes, and set it on the patio table for him along with the note. (I’m a writer dammit, did you hear?😂)
Per my short directions on the note, we did several refills/exchanges throughout the day by him leaving the empty vessel on the stoop just outside of where my dog rests in the sun. I knew he would know where I was talking about because he always says hi to my dog through the doorwall window just there.
Today, I spoke to him. Actually poked my head out the door and asked him if he wanted water again today. He did. I obliged. I didn’t want to go back out there. But I did! This is improvement. This is growth for me. It’s uncomfortable and not at all elegant.
Side note: I didn’t know if he would feel safe enough to drink from the container I left out for him. Not in this day and age. He did hand his empty plastic water bottle to my husband on the second day he worked and asked for a refill, so the trust may be strong in this young man yet. We’re not all jaded. Some still have faith in the goodness of people.
My inner cynic chimes in at anxious and challenging moments and I automatically think of John Carpenter’s The Thing. This part in particular:
If you can’t laugh at yourself in these vulnerable moments, you risk deteriorating into a sad, isolated mess. Trust me.
I’m tired. I’m not defeated. I’m defiant in the face of obstacles trying to stop me from progress. The momentum is forward. Ever forward.
In the absence of goodness, one must BE the goodness. It comes back to smile on you sometimes. Take a chance, my friends. You may be surprised by what happens. I want to hear all about it.
I made a new friend. He drew me!
