I hate to say it, but most people, sooner or later, reach a point of "I Don't Give a Damn." It may take a while to find that sweet point where you feel redemption in voicing damnation, yet it's never going to pack up and leave your soul. It's always within, slowly growing and sticking straight in your craw, aging until perfection. Then one day -- Wham! -- out of the blue with completely no set context, it spills out of your gut into your throat and you spew it out until you think your body could not possibly take even one more ounce of the torment. "You" like me, don't give a damn, do you?
When that realization attacks, it hits you with a vision clearer than the brightest blue sky.You realize you suddenly that you are experiencing the lasting symptoms of "I Don't Give a Damn." All has finally come to fruition.
You try to rationalize its presence, but invariably give in to its gush of emotional and physical power. You can't stop it, ignore it, or wish it away, no matter how hard you try. The damned thing covers you and soils everything and everybody else nearby, and you can make no excuse for its eruption ... sometimes such a violent explosion that your head feels separated from the rest of your body because of the blunt force you just experienced. You see, you acknowledged your own lack of "giving a damn" in your enormous eruption.
What age do people IDGAD? It varies with their degree of patience, understanding, and honesty ... an honesty measuring your own toleration, or more clearly, your lack of control over your virtues. You just don't give a damn anymore, do you? You can't hold back and you realize goodness because now you have entered the black hole of IDGAD, like it or not. So, now you spiral out of existence and perceive others are just as living undead as you. That is "I Don't Give a Damn" in retaliation and in mutual feelings. Relation, lovers, friends -- all enter the frame of mind out of your actions.
Take me, for instance, I was making some good progress with my IDGAD until suddenly and seemingly without warning, foundations of my existence were not only shaken but completely obliterated. I pushed too hard and caused my old self to lay in pieces all around me. Like Humpty Dumpty, no one could put me back together again. This IDGAD is your new state fashioned by your past. Only you can deal with the aftermath. I can't help anyhow. I already "don't give a damn."
You will know when it's your time for the change. It's not just a sense of carelessness or a shortcoming of the spirit. The golden rule hits rock bottom, and its suddenly the time when you look around with a dazed mind only to discover a newfound, strange confidence that suddenly shows new vision. Clear or cloudy,you just don't care anymore about what you now see, and you step squarely in the middle of that black hole of IDGAD, never to be spit out into a sensible, kind transition. Age itself prevents such a comeback.
Don't worry. None of your preparation for prevention would have worked to prevent your fall. You have had this affliction as an involuntary reflex -- a necessary movement in which you must relieve yourself like dumping an unwelcome, huge load of waste. I don't care how you handle it. Once it begins -- and it will begin -- I guarantee it -- it will appear because you are a genuine human being enslaved in your own trappings. You already "got yours" as they say, and that is all that counts in this greedy world.
Your physical strength or your mental toughness won't stop the paroxysm either. It just happens -- hopefully in private, but most often unfortunately it occurs in public among many others. No warning, a gush of IDGAD bursts unannounced and there you have it -- a complete, utter mess. And, don't expect a friend, spouse, or caretaker to help clean it up -- without exception, your IDGAD is yours alone. Others don't give a damn because they have their own little lives to worry about.Thus, IDGAD universalizes the planet on which we survive.
And certainly don't expect me to care or help you because I have already experienced "I Don't Give a Damn." So, I don't try to make anyone better. It belongs to you in its entirety and has finally flared up in its own slow, careless making. The entity is new to you. Just deal with it. IDGAD. Period. Run up your IDGAD flag so everyone will not expect you to lift a finger (outside of your self-interests, of course).
When it happened to me, I was full of stress and dread, yet strangely aware that I had tested my own limits and that I had somehow had failed. The agony and extent of the explosion to others around me will forever remain unknown+, so don't expect anyone to ever discuss such an indifferent topic with you or expect anyone else to attempt to relieve you of any part of your suddenly newfound, hardened self. All of the shock and awe -- you own it, brother or sister. It grew and had to relieve itself most likely in an unlikely, enigmatic display of your immediate sick intentions. It now is just a hackneyed "it is what it is."
IDGAD has no time for reflection or change. It so occupies the fibers of your present being, and it will most likely linger like a chronic disease the rest of your life. You see, IDGAD justifies itself. It doesn't need its host after its arrival. Excuses make no sense while apologies for its destruction and mayhem are seldom welcomed. Why? You guessed it. They -- those you conceived loved you -- have experienced the malady, too; it's too late for personal redemption or damage control.
Let me share how I later found some telltale symptoms of "I Don't Give a Damn" before my sudden and permanent transformation:
1. Silence and lack of communication on any level.
2. Lack of interests and social connections,
3. Complete loss of dependence,
4. Total unconcern for others with similar or worse plights,
5. Gut-wrenching loneliness sans concern for each other,
6. Deliberate noncompliance and revenge,
7. Constant disagreement about the smallest of topics,
8. "Same old, same old" feelings about responsibilities,
9. Lack of sincerity -- lie after lie -- often with hidden expenses, and ignoring detail, and finally
10. Discovery of hidden, hateful emotions for others disguised as simple disagreement.
These were all signs of "I Don't Give a Damn" that I later tried to blame for its eruption. At the time, many seemed trivial; however, many did permanent, lasting damage that built in intensity to a final crescendo over time. I allowed it to happen.
I felt bad about changing my ways and started seeing external excuses. What a waste of time. IDGAD is all about you, no others. It would never appear because of anything someone else said or did. You, like me, are your own worst enemy -- at least now I have learned to be silent and take responsibility whenever I can. But I know I'm still in the clutches of IDGAD. It reappears in various forms of my life ... often with inconsistencies and total ignorance.
After all, I have free will and old habits worsen as they dwell in the heart of the human beast ... with the exceptions of a few public niceties -- done for show, for appreciation of past care, for what some kind souls call "common courtesies." Sincere replies for appreciation are few and far between -- very few know even how to compose a kind expression as life-changing IDGAD has also consumed their hearts and minds.
IDGAD must be expected from other busy, forgetful souls, yet its effects so weaken our world. I-phones, lack of truth, boring television, condoned violence and hatred, lack of care for any but one's own opinion, and placing our fast-paced lives over empathy -- I've never seen the absence of interest so low in my 73 years.
I admit this mayhem all happened under my watch and care, so I take blame for my own IDGAD syndrome. You handle yours, and I'll run out of breath handling mine. I regret my present state, but it is reality. I am so unversed in fantasy, modern culture, and staying abreast of the new "ways" that I can assure you "I Don't Give a Damn" about 99% of what keeps the present afloat. If you will, IDGAD has damned my soul.
In closing, I'll ask, "Do you really give a damn about me ... anything?" No, that even sounds selfish to me. How about, "Do you really give a damn that, as I see it, a dark and fucked up future awaits because too many enter IDGAD too soon. I know you've already said it -- "Well, I don't give a damn" -- and I also know you experience many of the symptoms I cite to date, so be honest with yourself and with others before falling into that permanent IDGAD abyss and tumbling head over heals to your newer, more careless condition. It's not very pleasant at all. Lonely as hell.
Most of the time I blame myself for "I Don't Give a Damn" because I evidently used my imagination, hope, and charity with expectations of no return. I let my greatest opportunities go to hell and merely expected someone else to restore sanity. I take full responsibility for my own fall. No response or indifference feeds and breeds contempt. Blame immaturity, ignorance, scapegoats, stereotypes but it is I ... and I suspect a little of you ... who helped ban imagination and thus minded to our own selfish, thoughtless business. Greed? Disinterest? Lack of care? Face it -- I and you created this stinking, backwards looking mess. So hey, "I Don't Give a Damn." Do you? I thought not.
"Once They Banned Imagine"
By Drive-By Truckers
And lot of reasons grabby was good
Poor huddled masses singing boots up their asses
Giving grabby what he needed to pull
All the way back to where ghosts from the past were still
Fighting their wars from the grave
Complete with record burning and threatening and spurning
The crime of getting blood on the page
Since the big one ended we'd been mostly pretending
We'd have had the same gumption and grit
As the greatest among us when harm came upon us
We wouldn't hesitate to defend
But with or against something's been out to get us
And it looked like something finally did
No nobler cause in our lifetime for setting our sails to the wind
But once they banned Imagine it became the same old war its always been
Once they banned Imagine it became the war it was when we were kids
Are you now or have you ever been in cahoots with the notion that people can change
When history happens again if you do or you did you'll be blamed
From baseless inquiry
To no knocking entry
Becoming the law of the land
To half cocked excuses for bullet abuse regarding anything browner than tan
Cause once they banned Imagine it became the same old war its always been
Once they banned Imagine it became the war it was when we were kids
* The lyrics reflect the political climate and the challenges faced by artists in
expressing their views freely. “Once They Banned Imagine” by Drive-By Truckers serves as a powerful
reminder of the importance of artistic expression and the constant
struggle against censorship. It highlights how power structures
manipulate events to control and silence voices that dare to raise
questions or offer alternative perspectives. (Imagine the fates of John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr, and John Lennon to get even more perspective. And, of course, now many of us don't give a damn -- the same old internal war.)
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