Words&Dirt

“In the context of a man’s life, caring has a way of ordering his other values and activities around it. When this ordering is comprehensive, because of the inclusiveness of his carings, there is a basic stability in his life; he is ‘in place’ in the world, instead of being out of place, or merely drifting or endlessly seeking his place. Through caring for certain others, by serving them through caring, a man lives the meaning of his own life. In the sense in which a man can ever be said to be at home in the world, he is at home not through dominating, or explaining, or appreciating, but through caring and being cared for.”

––On Caring, by Milton Mayeroff, pg. 2

“In caring I commit myself to the other; I hold myself out as someone who can be depended on. If there is an acute break within this relation because of my indifference or neglect, I feel guilty, as if the other were to say, ‘Where were you when I needed you, why did you let me down?’ This guilt results from my sense of having betrayed the other, and my conscience calls me back to it. The more important this particular other is to me, the more pronounced is my guilt.

Like pain, guilt tells me that something is wrong; if it is felt deeply, understood, and accepted, it provides me with the opportunity to return to my responsibility for the other. That return does not necessarily reinstate the relationship as it existed prior to the break; rather, it often makes for a deeper seriousness and awareness of my trust. It is like almost losing something through indifference, and by this near-loss realizing more deeply how precious it actually is to me. I do not resume caring simply to overcome guilt, but I overcome guilt by renewed caring.

Also, since I identify with the growth of the other, and experience it as in some sense an extension of myself, my neglect of it produces at the same time a break in my own responsiveness to myself. Just as the honorable man betrays himself in breaking his word to another, guilt in caring is not simply an expression of my betrayal of the other; it is also an expression of self-betrayal. Conscience calls me back both to the other and to myself. Through overcoming the break with the other, I overcome the break within myself.”

––On Caring, by Milton Mayeroff, pg. 45-6