what do you think

I was just noticing a particular common thread to my writing, that I seem to find lots of different ways to care what other people think. From here, I immediately jump to an example, without even trying: who cares what other people think, right? That's not my thought, it's what I know other people think, so then go on to address it. This seems to be how my brain works.

The idea that we should be indifferent to what others think strikes me as akin to suggesting that the best way through a maze is to pretend the walls aren't there. Other people navigate those walls without even thinking about it. I have to think about it a lot. 

It seems to me that what we all think largely defines reality. There may be a physical reality that is completely indifferent to what people are thinking about it, but that's not what gives everything meaning. It's what we think that assigns countless variables of importance, significance, and value to all phenomena. A whole lot of that dynamic wherein we decide what matters is interactive, between people, not simply isolated to our individual whims.

In my understanding of the human condition, what other people think tends to matter a whole lot, in so many different ways.

One might take a more nihilistic approach and ask if this means nothing has any real meaning, therefor who cares about any of it. We might ask what it means for something to mean something and conclude that it doesn't really mean anything. Meaning represents how we're wired. It matters to chemical signals in our brains that have evolved to assess value, to us as organisms and as a species, evolved to value our survival. 

I don't think the most rational view is to imagine ourselves above the whole mess of chemical signals that defines whether we'll be happy or suffering and miserable. That socially entangled mess of chemical signals is us, whether we're aware of it or not.