"Do I care about you?"

May I also add that in my short lived experience the people I have grown closest to and with whom I even remotely experienced care from, are those who I have experienced the greatest conflict with. "Enemies" have become friends, and in some cases I would be prepared to put my life in their hands. Now that is an interesting idea. Care can be conflict.

Words mean things. And fortunately even though we learn language mostly from our parents and friends, the people concerned with its use as a means of communication regularly publish books that tell us how words are used and what they mean, so even if we may not be sure about a certain one, we can look it up and be confident that a good number of people use it in a way described in those books.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary to care means "to be interested in or concerned about something" or "to feel affection for someone". According to Oxford Dictionaries to care means to "feel concern or interest; attach importance to something" with the affection clause being a subset of that meaning".

Now with two major and rather detailed dictionaries agreeing to this remarkable degree we can assert with some amount of confidence that this is a proper usage of that word and that using it without explicit definition will to most people conduct some message very close or equivalent to these. Unless a new temporary definition is to be used in a specific context, establishing one is unnecessary at best and confusing for the most part.

I had the week off from school when they taught grammar LOL, but its almost like a proword type of thing; care for versus care about. You could do one without it being the other in both cases. Perhaps adding that other word after 'care' would better define which type it was, but even that is not bullet proof from misintepretation. That is a predictable answer from me isnt it Jon haha

I care about everyone here but I'm not caring for any of you :lol: :blink:

Jon wrote: May I also add that in my short lived experience the people I have grown closest to and with whom I even remotely experienced care from, are those who I have experienced the greatest conflict with. "Enemies" have become friends, and in some cases I would be prepared to put my life in their hands. Now that is an interesting idea. Care can be conflict.

I think conflict can create connection. Care doesn't necessary have to be in a thoughtful kind of way; to care is to be aware of, to devote thought to, perhaps to get emotional about; it is little wonder then I suppose that our enemies can become our best friends.

How much care do we have to go around? If we practice it, will it become stronger? If it IS finite, by what criteria do we expend it?

Adder wrote: its almost like a proword type of thing; care for versus care about. You could do one without it being the other in both cases.

By the time I got to your post I had resolved to write a reply about the difference between caring 'for' and caring 'about' :laugh:

Great minds think alike... :whistle:


I think it's a little like the difference between empathy and sympathy. People get them mixed up a lot, but empathy is a little more interpersonal and indicative of mutual shared feeling, whereas sympathy somehow maintains slightly more of a feeling of offering support from a detached perspective.

When you really care for someone or something it feels to some extent as though it is a part of your being or soul, and thus when it is hurt in any way you feel pain also. If I only feel a slight twinge (or nothing at all) I tend to take that as an indication that I don't care quite as much as I might have thought.

Thank you Jon, an interesting topic...

Jon,

First off, welcome back I admit I have missed ya.

To address your post:

I like the catchy title. I think that your understanding of caring is right on. Though it has become a misunderstood and misused word in our world today.

I see "I care" to mean I am invested in whatever it is I am talking about. I could be a project, it could be a person, it could be anything that has great value to me. V-Tog hit it straight on the button there.

I do think that some people care out of instinct and sometimes out of duty, or rather they act as though they do, when they really don't. That part I think is dangerous, while I understand duty, I also had to learn myself when I was doing that. Some people do not and end up... well lost in my opinion.

I like it. Strong topic!

Jon wrote: May I also add that in my short lived experience the people I have grown closest to and with whom I even remotely experienced care from, are those who I have experienced the greatest conflict with. "Enemies" have become friends, and in some cases I would be prepared to put my life in their hands. Now that is an interesting idea. Care can be conflict.

Your friends aren't the people who let you jump off the cliff, your friends are the people who beat you up for even thinking about it.