You and I Could Do Better Than This

So much of our modern discourse is dressed up shit that just doesn't matter

My hair is getting whiter and I don’t give a fuck.

There are so many things I don’t give a fuck about now. They comprise a giant list like that one that Santa Claus unscrolls with the wishes of every child in the world.

Santa might need another scroll to fit all my DGAFs.

Except my list is only me and I’m no Mrs. Claus. Never was. What a shitty job anyhow — take care of the elves and make cookies and never get to leave the North Pole. WTF. Mrs. Claus should divorce that old man and move to Cabo.

Back to My Gigantic List of Fucks I Don’t Give

I bet you have one, too, because you’re probably older than 11 and that’s about when the DGAF list seems to start in our entirely bizarre world.

But maybe DGAF is over as a marker — and we should only consider our Give a Fuck lists now. The GAF list has to be shorter. I think this might be all I have on mine:

• my kids

• my dog

• writing

• reading

• the Earth.

What else really matters?

Hmmm. I have one more but it’s big: My rights — all of them, especially my right to be left the fuck alone to do what I want — including with my own body. So let’s call that freedom — and I’m a big freedom lover.

Mostly, I want to be free of other people’s expectations/limitations on me and my behavior.

I want to love who I love, read, write, lift weights, walk my dog, and watch my kids grow into even more beautiful spirits than they already are — preferably on a planet that is not melting under our feet, even up here in Seattle.

That’s it.

Everything else is negotiable.

I also want 18 naps a day like Jasper.

Twinsies?

I suspect that no matter what your outward political stripes are, you and I are probably the same in this want — this deep yearning — for the freedom to just be us.

And I wish there wasn’t all this polarized noise in America so that we could hit a workout together, maybe share a beer, and find the common ground that we can build on together. We all used to do more of that — and I hope someday we can get back to that again because it’s way more important than all this shouting and division.

Plus, I imagine we all hate the same things: burpees and anybody who leaves a loaded barbell in the rack. (Who raises such monsters? Jeez Louise.)

So, tell me, what’s on your list of Give a Fucks? What really matters to you?

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Bonus Read: Please Don’t Give Me a Number