cba,
Why not just consider other people and their opinions simply as circumstances in this world we all have to navigate. I mean, imagine the following question: “Should I care if a giant rock is falling towards my head?” Well, given that information, that this rock is falling towards my head, I conclude certain things, such as: I will be either in alot of pain or dead if the current state of affairs does not change. I may also use my imagination to attempt to predict a plan of action that would sufficiently change the state of affairs in my favor. Than I may enact whichever plan I decided on. Bassicly, the original given information was somehow implimented by me, and thus it can be said that I care about it. Or, upon aknowledging the information, I could have decided: “I dont care” which I imagine would mean that that information is not to be implimented by me.
So, now, the same applies to humans. A human attempting to comunicate to you is information. Every circumstance, actually every percieved moment is always new information. On this fundamental level, there is no diffirence between a person talking to you and a rock falling towards your head or a wind blowing in your face… or any other set of percieved, emperical data. When a person tells you something, you consider the consequences of this data. You attempt to analyze the meaning behind the sounds, you maybe attempt to predict intentions or feelings, and you may choose to act on this information.
So what is the deciding factor in wheather or not to care? Consequence. Upon consideration of the consequences of a certain piece or set of data, you decide wheather or not to care. If that rock that was falling was falling 50 feet away from you onto soft grass, than maybe you would conclude that that consequence is unimportant to you, and you may say: “I dont care about that rock falling 50 feet away from me” in that you will not impliment this information. Yet if that rock was falling exactly 1 foot to the right of you, you might understand that moving to the right one foot will yield unpleasent consequences, so you conclude that you should not move to your right. Thus, you do care that the rock is falling, because that information has been implimented. The same, only a probably a much more involved analysis occurs when interacting with other people. You must consider the consequences of what they say and the consequences of certain actions you may take. You may for some reason decide to tell them to “fuck off” which may lead them to pull out a gun and shoot you. If these are circumstances you would like to avoid, and you knew this was a potential consequence of your actions, than… I would assume there must have been an alterior motive, or maybe in that moment you did not use a rational analysis of the situation but acted on emotion.
Anyways, im getting into needless details. The point is humans are a bundle of consequences as far as I am concerned when considering them. They are a circumstance in the world that a rational being would be wise to consider. I cannot tell you in general wheather or not you should care about what people say. According to my experience when people tell me things this information is very often extremely consequential. Thus in most cases I care, because I forsee consequences that are important to me from this information and thus I impliment it. But then again, in some cases, like my little 10 year old cousin, I have come to conclude that the great majority of what he says is inconsequential to me. And thus I often dont care about what he says. I would only advise you to keep an open mind and dont adhere to any general rules too strictly. If I adopted the general rule that I shouldnt care what my 10 year old cousin has to say, than I could easily run into a boy who cried wolf situation… wherein he says something that actually IS consequential but I dont care…
Thats all from me, would love to hear a response. Thanks. 