We Are Care: Decoding the Essence of Being Human

Why "Care" is the Cure for a Pathological World

The Earth turns to greet the Sun
We ride along 
Guided by Care.

Greetings Brilliant Readers~! Thank you so much for Being here.

I’ve missed a few days of writing, consumed instead by a mental journey that has taken me to some very interesting, and I think good, places.

I try to always carry a “Field Notes” notebook with me to write down ideas during travel and walks. It is these “prompts” that I rely on when I sit down to write to generate the flow of my thoughts and ideas.

My Notebook is filled with prompts from the past week, but instead of descriptions of places and people, the prompts are of ideas and concepts that have blossomed in the sunlight of Heidegger, Plato, and others.

My biggest revelation was understanding the concept of Care. We, as Humans, are fulfilled and reach our potential through Care. Care is the essence of our being.

We are Care. By exercising our Care towards ourselves and others we reach our potential Goodness.

What do I mean by “Care”? Care is Rational Love. Not erotic love, but thoughtful love. Where love can be driven by hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin, Care is driven by the desire to nurture.

I think we need a better word to symbolize what I mean by “Care”. It’s that form of “Love” which Iris Murdoch describes:

Love … is the energy and the passion of the soul in its search for Good, the force that joins us to Good and joins us to the world through Good. Its existence is the unmistakable sign that we are spiritual creatures, attracted by excellence and made for the Good. It is a reflection of the warmth and light of the sun.

Iris Murdoch (2013). “The Sovereignty of Good”, p.100, Routledge.

The idea of Care is love without sex. That sounds awful, but bear with me. Though Care can lead to and include passion, Care is not dependent on passion. Care is rational. Love, as we know, can be both irrational and blind us to the truth, where Care relies on the truth.

The word cure comes from the Latin, cura, meaning care and concern.

Cura is also the name of the Roman goddess who created the first human (homo). Here is the story of Cura:

As Care (Cura) was crossing a river, she thoughtfully picked up some mud and began to fashion a human being. While she was pondering what she had done, Jupiter came along. (Jupiter was the founder of Olympian society, a society of the major gods and goddesses who inhabited Mount Olympus after most of the gods had already appeared.) Care asked him to give the spirit of life to the human being, and Jupiter readily granted this. Care wanted to name the human after herself, but Jupiter insisted that his name should be given to the human instead.

While Care and Jupiter were arguing, Terra arose and said that the human being should be named after her, since she had given her own body. (Terra, or Earth, the original life force of the earth, guided Jupiter’s rise to power.) Finally, all three disputants accepted Saturn as judge. (Known for his devotion to fairness and equality, Saturn was the son of Terra and the father of Jupiter.)

Saturn decided that Jupiter, who gave spirit to the human, would take back its soul after death; and since Terra had offered her body to the human, she should receive it back after death. But, said Saturn, “Since Care first fashioned the human being, let her have and hold it as long as it lives.”

Finally, Jupiter said, “Let it be called homo (Latin for human being), since it seems to be made from humus (Latin for earth)”.

“History of the Notion of Care” Encyclopedia of Bioethics (1995), by Warren T. Reich. This Graeco-Roman myth is found in a second-century Latin collection of myths edited by Hyginus (Hyginus, 1976; Grant, 1960).

Heidegger argues that the act of caring for oneself and for others and the attitude of ‘care-fulness’ typifies being a ‘human being’; to ‘care’ is the essence, the structure of being (Kleinman and Van der Geest 2009).

In his masterpiece, Sein und Zeit, Heidegger proposed the concept of sorge (German for “care”) as the basic form of authentic being. Sorge or Care signifies someone’s existence and makes it meaningful. Heidegger uses the concept of Care to describe and characterize the structural whole of being (Dasein) (Nichols 2000, 2). Shields (2013, 89).

Heidegger writes that Care includes two basic forces of human existence: Care towards yourself and others and Care towards the future. Being in the world with others implies both care for others and being cared for by others. Care can be driven by, include, or deteriorate into anxiety.

Care (sorge) has been described as an existential-ontological state characterized by both “anxiety” about the future and the desire to “attend to” or “care for” the world.

Shields, James. (2013). Zange and Sorge: Two Models of “Concern” in Comparative Philosophy of Religion. 10.1163/9789401208925_009.

Let’s leave anxiety for another day.

Care (nurture) is very close to the Greek concept of Agape or the philosophical concept of Caritas. "Care" is the modern, secular engine of what the ancients called "Charity."

Care in the Law

Our laws recognize the importance of Care! Most Western civil legal systems require that we act with care. I spent much of my legal career representing people who had lost loved ones or been injured by the negligence of others. Negligence is characterized by a lack of care. If someone is hurt because you failed to exercise “reasonable care” then that person is entitled to damages. The law says we must act “with due care”.

Statue of Lady Justice blindfolded and holding a balance and a sword, outside the Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong. CC BY-SA 3.0

When a Jury is charged to render a verdict on the amount of damages suffered by the victim of negligence, they are told to make their award to “cure” the damage suffered, to issue a verdict that balances out the harm caused. But the Jury is forbidden to award damages based on sympathy. Rather the Jury should be guided by empathy. Empathy means “You hurt, and I understand.” Only by understanding the injustice and injuries can a fair verdict be reached. The purpose of the Jury’s award is to cure the harm caused. In so doing, the Jury is exercising Care, not emotionally, but rationally.

So sorry I hit send before finishing this piece and emailing it out. More to share in the next post.

Thanks so much for reading!