Detached judgment while giving a fuck
There are several books out, these days, about not giving a fuck. And yes, I get it, we can now use the word ‘fuck’ in a book—even right on the cover. Look here: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Well, fuck is a fine word, a fucking powerful word. If you don’t give one, it means you don’t care. Hence if you do give one, you probably care. “I haven’t a fuck in the world, tra la!”
Let me say first that no one is trying to tell you that you should simply not care. Mark Manson, whose book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, tops the list, goes to extreme trouble to make that clear. Nonetheless, most people are going to go right ahead and misunderstand, because their desire to get mileage from telling the world they don’t give a fuck is very strong.
When religious sages write about detachment, they are essentially writing about not giving a fuck. Yet there’s a considerable difference to you between cultivating detachment and not giving a fuck. When you say, “I don’t give a fuck,” observe the surrounding cast who support your statement. I believe you will recognize Arrogance, Rebellion, Daring, Challenge, Apathy—oh, and a little nameless character whose walk-on part is to inflict a pinprick of pain to someone, somewhere, somehow. The phrase, “I don’t give a fuck,’ was designed from the outset to be an instrument of combat. If you can separate it from all its hangers-on, great. (Mark Manson can help you do that, and I recommend his book.)
Detachment has no such encumbrances. Detachment is accomplished with elegance and grace. It blows no trumpet. It is a completely independent decision involving no one else’s participation in any way. When you detach, you remove yourself from the center of conflict very quietly, as though you suddenly turned invisible. Once you have disentangled, you rise to a higher place of perspective, as you do when climbing a mountain. From that elevation, you can see more clearly the pattern of everyone else’s desires—and your own. Jesus was in a very high state of consciousness when he said, from the cross, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” He did not say, “Frankly, Father, I don’t give a fuck.”
Let’s suppose you’ve found out that certain people are saying very unfair things about you behind your back. And the discovery has probably hurt you. So, you say, “I don’t give a fuck what they say about me.” There, feel better? Really? Because it sounds to me as if you do give a whole bunch of fucks. If you really didn’t give a fuck—didn’t care—then you wouldn’t need to say so. The word ‘fuck’ is intended to rattle someone’s eardrums. Even if you don’t say it out loud, you’re kind of hoping the power-vibes of the word will slice through the ether, hit their mark, and make someone feel sorry.
Then what happens if you detach? What’s the difference? I will talk about that in a later blog.