Hi, my name is Paul and I have a problem...
I care. I really do. I know it’s inappropriate in this modern age to care, but I can’t stop myself.
I go to work, but I am unable to drink the cool-aide. Unlike other employees, I can not reach that nirvana of a zombie-like state that lets me say things like “it’s not my job”, or “it’s somebody else’s problem” or even “it’s always been that way”.
If I see something wrong, I want to fix it. If I’m wasting my time with useless work, I feel bad.
I watch our society, steeped in unnecessary complexity, decay and shallow deceptions, but I am unable to turn away. I can not say “it doesn’t matter”, or “we shouldn’t help people who can not help themselves”, or generally just funnel money, power or opportunity to my friends, while others are left out in the cold.
I try to be more self-centered. I really do. But my delusions keep getting dispersed by empathy; by thinking; by caring.
Now I realize that I’m in a minority. Most people can find happiness by blindly following the herd; by refusing to question even the most obvious stupidity. They can just put their heads down and go with the flow. And they are happy. Happy redirecting their focus on little gadgets. Happy lounging around on the weekends. Happy doing meaningless work. Happy in the knowledge that is not their job, not their responsibly and they are doing what they are told even if it makes no sense, makes the world a crappy place, or contributes to an inevitable disaster. They are happy because they don’t care.
But I’ve decided to do something about my affliction. I’ve forming the IACA, which stands for “I Actually Care Anonymous”. It is an organization for those few of us afflicted with caring. Each week we can gather, and through group effort, we can learn to shut out the world. To blindly follow, and not question. To act without thinking. To turn off our compulsive need to fix things. We can chant things like “”That’s perfect”, “Yes, I want a Performance Review”, or “Wow, isn’t it great that I can re-do the same work many times over and still get paid”.
We can reiterate the lack of need for common sense; for things to be functional; for work to be have some real value. We can learn to be “pro-active” without thinking, or to apply wafer-thin “team-spirit” in place of results. We can learn to shut out that nasty reality, and narrow our focus down to something trivial.
Through a dedicated effort we can learn the ultimate power of sheep, and to blindly follow where no sheep have gone before. And that should make us happy again. Secure in the knowledge that whatever bad things befall us, they are not our problem, even if they were preventable. We can learn to take marketing literally. We can learn to believe even the lamest of executive ploys to distract us from that fact that things are dysfunctional and that we aren’t being respected. We can learn to be happy.
So, stop caring today. Join us in finding true and mindless happiness. Learn to baaaa like you don’t care. You’re only prolonging your pain if you don’t.
