Caring - The story of emotional intensity
Let’s define caring, as the intensity of our emotions, critical given a lack of emotional intensity is depression. Intense emotions are synonymous with interest and mental energy, which is a double edged sword: Good caring (commitment to our identity, positive habits) charges us up, but bad caring (attachment, anger, anxiety, focus on things we don’t control), brings us down. Much of this post is based on the work of Dr. Raph, and a book on stoicism The practicing stoic.
Why do I care so much?
I’ve been depressed before. It’s awful. Clinically, the loss of passion is the main symptom of major-depression. This hallmark depressive symptom, known as ‘anhedonia’, is defined in the psychiatric diagnostic manual as “a markedly diminished interest or pleasure, in all or almost all, activities most of the day,
If you want to know more feel free to watch the video on my depression post:
The dark path from not caring to depression
I imagine my passions as a healthy fire with many logs fueling it. With depression that fire is out, and boy restarting it is hard.
I’m generally a very passionate person, with each of my roles fueling the fire.
I’m not sure how it happens, but I’m sure it’s a combination of hardware (brain chemicals), software (habits and framing), and environment (stressors, physical activity, relationships). While I have limited hardware control (I take daily meds), I have a lot of agency over the software, and much over the environment.
I’m also sure it can be non-linear with very fast step functions for the worse.
Good Caring
Nurturing curiosity
Caring vs Mattering
Caring is the intensity of your emotional response, mattering is how impactful an event is to a system in a time period. When you care deeply about something, test if you’re confusing how much you care with how much it matters.
Event: Getting cut off in traffic:
- Care: Seems like the most important thing ever!
- Matter To you in 3 days: Nope not at all.
- Matter To the population of China in 2 years: Nope not at all
Event: Your child dying before you:
- Care: Seems like the most important thing ever!
- Matter To you in 3 days: For sure, a ton, probably matters to you for the rest of your life
- Matter To the population of China in 2 years: Nope not at all
Caring and Suffering
Experiences in which one’s ‘caring’ contributes to their suffering are the rule in the human condition, not the exception, because ‘caring’ and ‘suffering’ are connected: The more one cares about some ‘thing’, the more they are likely to suffer as a result of an undesired outcome involving that ‘thing’. Conversely, not-caring offers a degree of immunity from suffering when things go wrong.
Circle of concern vs Circle of Influence
Attachment vs Commitment
Be very, very careful saying: I don’t care
Here be dragons - you may very much care.
According to a well-established principle of behavioral psychology, the frequency of any behavior is likely to increase if it is rewarded. Reduction (or avoidance altogether) of pain and suffering is a powerful reward. It is likely to promote the repetition of a behavior associated with it — such as retraction of caring (even if the association is made subconsciously). With enough repetition, any behavior may become ingrained — a habit. Putting this together — when reducing one’s ‘caring’ is rewarded by (even the perception of) lessening their pain, it is likely to be repeated; with enough repetition, avoidance of ‘caring’ can become habitual, or a second nature.
One can actively invest in avoiding ‘caring’ (or ‘passion’) by devaluing it. ‘Caring’ can be devalued by portraying it as irrelevant, and/or as a weakness. This is the dynamic behind the peculiarly common labeling of ‘caring’ as childish, naive, or a feminine (and therefore, weak) trait, and the similarly peculiar opposite, where ‘not-caring’ is praised and regarded as evidence of “growing-up”, “getting-real”, or “manning-up”.
A repetitious, systematic reduction of the role that ‘passion’ and ‘caring’ are permitted to have in one’s mental process can have grave, if hidden, consequences: Conditioned avoidance of ‘caring’ can amount to the acquisition of anhedonia; it may play a role in the course of ‘major-depression’ in genetically predisposed individuals, and mimic it in individuals that are not predisposed for the disorder.
‘Caring’ is related to pain and suffering — the more one cares, the more they are prone to suffer, and vice versa — withholding caring does offer some protection from suffering. Hence, the notion that by reducing ‘caring’ one reduces their vulnerability is luring. However, examination of this strategy readily reveals its futility: ‘Caring’ is always an asset — even when it hurts. The cost of withholding ‘caring’ is much greater than its potential benefit; it can covertly lead to an erosion of passion about any aspect of life — from peripheral hobbies to the most important, central relationships. Ultimately, a conditioned loss of normal ‘caring’ can result in an acquired state of ‘despair’ (in biologically predisposed individuals it can contribute to the expression of acute and chronic depressive disorders). More generally, loss of passion negates the effective pursuit of happiness.
Caring as Related to
Caring and Energy
Caring and isolation
- I’d love more content for this.
False caring?
- Something bugs me about watching TikToks all day. It feels like I’ve been tricked into caring, and I consider it very worrisome.
Caring and Vegetation
Caring vs Action
From Dr. Raph
- Depression - or the lack of caring
- Caring in the pursuit of happiness - as a fundamental in the pursuit of happiness
What are we talking about?
Dr. Raph - The experience of possessing a passion. The intensity level of one’s emotional response to a specific object or event (i.e., it is a “meta-emotion” — the “volume setting” of an emotional response; the more intense one’s emotional response to something is, the more they care about that thing.)
The intensity level of the emotional response (either positive or negative) to something in one’s perceived reality. The subjective experience of passion (i.e., feeling passionate) is synonymous with the experience of caring (the intensity of which is proportional to the value automatically attributed to that which the passion, or caring, is centered on).
Stoicism
OK, this may end up in it’s own section
- Cool render of Aristotle’s What makes a good life
Q for DR. Raph
- If caring is defined as the intensity of an emotion - what term refers to caring about someone?