…Are basically just walking around screaming, “F**k you” to everybody.
I’ve actually been saying this for YEARS. And why shouldn’t I, by dammit? Isn’t this what makes people truly secure in themselves to the point of being immune to judgment, ridicule, embarrassment, or even, god forbid, truth? Absolutely, it does. These people are made out of bulletproof puppies. Just all cute and happy and content and full of life. And bulletproof. They’re freaking bulletproof.
And so was I. As long as I was saying (and thought I was meaning) “I don’t care what other people think about me,” I was a bulletproof puppy. It gave me this false sense of feeling like everybody admired me for being that way, maybe even envied me. I thought the ladies liked it (I’ll never know; it’s been many years since I stopped even guessing what women liked.) I thought my male peers liked it (of course, in the perpetual lifelong game of male one-upmanship, they probably cared less than me.) Heck, I even thought my administration at work liked it (see sentence about ladies above.)
The ONLY people on Earth that I can truly say almost somewhat maybe liked it – and sometimes even believed it – were my kids. My thirteen year old daughter was raised with a daddy that did goofy shit just to see that child smile. I had to. Addiction was often more important than her. I had to make it up to her somehow. This was, apparently, my only idea.
My son was ten months old when I quit drinking and dipping. In other words, for ten months, mostly with his face pressed firmly into a female breast, I didn’t give a rat’s ass what people thought about me. And neither did he!! He could even be in public and not give a damn what people thought. He wanted the damn boob. See? Men are ALWAYS trying to one-up each other. He wins this one. Talk about a bulletproof puppy.
The farce that is, “I don’t care what other people think of me” has a lot of layers, but as you peel each of them, you only get closer to the truth. It’s a lie!!!!
And yes, I realize there is probably somebody on this Earth that truly, one hundred percent does not care what ANYBODY thinks of them. I just doubt they’re very well liked. But I bet they exist.
Anyway, the outer layer of this lie is the insignificant stuff. This is the stuff like I used to do (and still do) when I’m with my daughter. It might be singing along with a song on the radio in the middle of Kohl’s while my daughter tries to hide under racks of clothes because I’m such an embarrassment. It might be joking around with perfect strangers about something my wife and daughter are shocked I would even say to a person I know, much less a stranger.
Or maybe it’s the child-friendly, middle finger alternative – the thumbs up – that I give to passing motorists who are mildly disobeying basic traffic etiquette. Or maybe it’s the way I dress or how short I cut my hair or the fact that I forgot to brush my teeth this morning.
Every time, whether it’s singing (or dancing) in public, shocking my family with what I might say to strangers, saluting other drivers, or bad fashion, bad hair, or bad hygiene, I always come away with the same reasoning when my family asks why I did something. “I don’t care what other people think about me.” See? Insignificant. Moving on.
The middle layer of this disgusting truth onion are mostly thoughts, though sometimes these thoughts are expressed. This layer is filled with all the things that never actually get done, but we damn sure have a reason for that!! We’re all going to diet “at some point” even though we “don’t care what other people think about us” if we’re a little overweight. We are going to “get in shape” even though we still don’t care if people see us as lazy, out of shape, or our very presence begins to resemble the malleability of pizza dough. We even swear we are going to learn to cook or do something crazy with our kids or surprise our spouse with something awesome but maybe a little weird.
And why will we do this? Because we don’t even care what our spouse and kids think about us. We are dumbasses.
Mine have always been more grandiose by comparison. I wrote a novel years ago, almost had a literary agent that wanted to represent me, even went to the Mystery Writer’s Conference in Baltimore because she wanted to meet me. It fell through. The antagonist was just a little too hard to believe. But have I ever taken a chance and self-published it? Nope, even though I don’t care what other people think about me. Lies. What if it fails to sell? People will judge that, right? What if the few people that read it say it sucks? What if only two people buy it?
Well there you go. I care what other people think.
This layer has sucked the life out of a bunch of “dreams” I’ve had over the years. I remember long ago (probably mid-20’s) I thought it would be cool to team up with three other guys and start a barbershop quartet. Why the hell not? It seemed different and creative. Four young, somewhat handsome guys going around to churches or banquets or nursing homes rekindling a style of music of years past? It was a no-brainer. We’d make the genre hip again (yes, hip. Shut up.) But did I do it? Nope. I didn’t care what other people thought about me, though.
Recently, I had this thought that it would be the coolest thing imaginable if I would write a screenplay – church-themed or otherwise – specifically written with my daughter in mind to play whatever young lady had the biggest role (she’s recently taken a liking to the theater, and if I wrote it, who’s going to tell me that my daughter can’t have the biggest role; that’s mildly selfish, I realize, but I don’t care what other people think about me, remember.) I have actually put a few lines of said screenplay on paper, but I’ve barely done anything with it beyond that. I mean, what if I write it and then she decides she hates being in plays all of a sudden? What would I do with it then? I sure as heck wouldn’t self-publish it even though I don’t care what other people think about me.
There have been plenty of others between those few examples. I probably remember less than ten percent of all of them, but they all follow the same pattern. I either have a thought about doing something amazing (and usually a little grandiose,) or I see somebody else doing something that I think I could do better, or I just have one of those laissez faire “you only live once” kind of promissory undertakings that starts out with bulletproof puppy type of excitement and ends with, “Oh, I wish I had time to do that right now.”
But I wouldn’t have cared what other people thought of me if I had done ALL of that stuff. Yeah, right, dumbass. That puffed up chest is just air.
So if we go back to our disgusting truth onion, we’ve got two layers so far. The first layer is that insignificant stuff that doesn’t really matter one way or another if we actually complete those “things” because they are so insignificant that saying “I don’t care what other people think of me” is like eating cheesecake and saying “Take that, monkeys, with your bananas.” It’s just stupid and misplaced. But I said it plenty. Why? Because I was a rebel and didn’t give a damn what ANYBODY thought of me!!!!
The second layer is the voice that resides mostly in our brains; the one that says, “Hey, that’s a good idea. I should definitely learn skywriting. I could ask my wife to renew our vows from a crop duster!! Who gives a damn what other people think.” But we almost never do those things. They require exiting our comfort zones and actually following through on something.
The final layer is the crap that we insecure, depressed, addicted, self-esteem seekers DO NOT DO. As in NEVER. Will not even consider. Because a large percentage of our persona has turned somewhat (or greatly) reclusive, we do not take chances, we do not openly nominate ourselves for things, we do not sing or perform or speak up in large groups unless forced, we don’t paint walls funky colors or wear outlandish outfits or drive pink cars, we most definitely do not think we are good enough or deserve to do any of the above, we simply stay neatly and comfortably in our bubble.
The things in this category are the things that absolutely WILL be judged, critiqued, lambasted, disagreed with, and maybe even enjoyed, but we must avoid those things because the whole, “I don’t care what other people think about me” line is a complete lie. We don’t know it’s a lie yet – I sure didn’t – but as the grass gets greener between me and the gas station, and the memory of the reclusion (some of which I’m still addicted to) starts to fade, and the daily look of hurt on my wife’s face starts looking more and more like daily joy, I see it so much clearer now.
From time to time, I STILL brag to myself that I don’t care what other people think about me, but I have to stop myself and say, “You know what, idiot, you actually do. And that’s okay. Without that capacity, your own ability to care is hindered because you have nobody from which to learn. Or, at the very least, mimic or fake.”
It’s also very similar to the Golden Rule. Care about others the way you would have them care about you. Those that are nasty about it and just want to be mean to everybody about everything can go right ahead and kiss the whitest part of my ass (still follows the Golden Rule template,) but I truly believe I can care with more empathy and sincerity when I care what others think of me.
Furthermore, and a little on the deeper side, when I care about myself and what others might think about me, I have the ability to care about the FEELINGS of others. I know this is true. When I was in the throes of active addiction, I did not care what other people thought about me and I did not care about myself. In turn, it was nearly impossible to give all of me to a relationship or my family. I was always missing, even when I was there. The hurt and pain that I was putting them through did not register because my addiction was more important.
This blog falls into that third layer. This is my first foray into the stuff that reclusive addicts DO NOT DO. I am taking a gigantic chance; I’m putting myself out there, I’m stepping far outside my comfort zone, I’m accepting the fact that my students and their parents and the Facebook Judge Judy’s of the world and old high school friends and people I haven’t seen in years are going to see this and think, “Wow. Denton turned into a drunk. Didn’t see that one coming.” I care that they are going to think that, but not enough to hold me back. I need to take this chance, to jump out of my comfort zone, to give back to a world from which I did nothing but take.
And when it’s all said and done and my words are there for everyone to see, I will absolutely care what other people think about them. I care what other people think about me now that they know the truth about me. I care if my words do or do not reach their intended purpose and audience. And yes, I absolutely care what that audience thinks. A year ago, I would have said, “I don’t give a damn what you think about it,” but I was still living that lie.
I absolutely DO care what other people think about me. I mean, not the nasty people. Once again, those people can kiss the whitest part of my ass. They don’t even warrant consideration. But I care about the other people because I finally give a damn about myself. And I care that maybe something I say at some point during this journey might do good in somebody’s life. And I get to care that it’s already doing good in mine.
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