Can you smell me from there?

How quickly we stop caring. Have you notice that? If you remove the base reason(s) for certain everyday behaviors, it's easy to stop caring about them. Maybe it's just me; I might be wired this way. But, I think there's a fair percentage of people like me who wouldn't care about the things we do to not offend others if those others were removed from the equation.

I haven't showered in days. There's good reasons for that. I'm living in a remodel in progress of a house that lacks running water. My means of cleaning myself are limited to showering at the local YMCA, driving twenty miles to a friend's house, or heating water for a sponge bath. As the snow here is up to my testicles, I haven't been able to move my car for several days now. And heating water takes time and effort. I don't really care, though. My only human contact is via phone or internet. Nobody around to smell me but the cat, and I've never seen her shower!

I would be more concerned if there were somebody around that I was trying to impress, or, at least, not offend. It leads me to think that there are a helluva lot of things we do just to make others like us, or not despise us. And when you take those "others" away, the need for these things is less needful.

Another example: I've never been one to do much housework. Unless somebody I lived with was on my ass about it, or, more rarely, I knew someone was coming over that I didn't want to think I was a pig. I never wanted to do it. I figured there were many more activities that I would find more fulfilling and entertaining. Maybe I am just a pig at heart. Maybe it's just the type B personality in me.

These are just some minor, petty examples, which probably have most of you reading this squeamish and hoping to never meet me in person. But, I do clean up well given the necessity of human contact. And I do crave human contact. However, I feel this alludes to some interesting ideas about our mindwork and motivations as a culture. What they are, I don't know and don't have the ambition to explore much further.

Sorry, I hope you weren't waiting for a profound point, a tidy little thesis.