"I don't care!"

"What would you like to eat?"

"I don't care!"

"Some lovely cream of wheat?"

"I don't care!"

Don't sit backwards on your chair."

"I don't care!"

"Or pour syrup on your hair."

"I don't care!"

When my son was little, one of his favourite stories was from a teeny-tiny book series in a teeny-tiny box sleeve, called, The Nutshell Library, with Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, One was Johnny, and Pierre.

The story was Pierre, about a naughty, rude and bored boy who finds out how to care after he meets a hungry lion. It was labelled as a Cautionary Tale.

Now, there are many types of people who say "I don't care":
cynics, bored people, disobedient, rude children, selfish-centered ones, and so on.

The problem is that more and more people are beginning to sound like Pierre saying, "I don't care." What is this? Depression? Apathy?

I have even met priests in the past several years, who when one points out a serious problem affecting people in the parish, such would reply "I don't care." That would be the ostrich approach to solving problems, of course.

But, of late, it is the older people from whom I am hearing "I don't care" which is really sad. Old people, even older than I am, have wisdom and grace and all kinds of good things to give. When they fall into cynicism or apathy, or weariness, the entire community loses continuity.

The spoiled brats of today may turn into some good people, after a few knocks in the world, or epiphanies. But, when older people fall into this mind-set, one worries, will they ever get out of this cynicism or apathy before they die?

To face meeting the Maker with an I don't care attitude would not be a sign of predilection.

"I care!"