Apathy is unacceptable

Apathy: (also called impassivity or perfunctoriness) is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical or physical life.

This post is a lecture. So, you know, you've been warned.

I think a huge reason that we don't see any change on the environmental front is because, as a culture, us North Americans are highly apathetic. We just... don't care. We don't. We are more concerned with our own lives, our stuff, our successes, failures, debts, surpluses, etc.

The problem is that our choices have world ending, people killing consequences in other parts of the world. They do, there isn't really any way around it. The decadence of the first world is paid for directly by the destruction of the third world--that's just kinda how it is.

Now, I don't want to say this to make people feel bad. When people feel like they are being attacked they tend to just go 900% in the opposite direction just to spite you--and if you think people aren't that self destructive and childish--you're wrong, they totally are (I do stuff like that too, but mainly with personal advice). So, understanding our limits should help to spread the message. Not of doom, but of a need to change hastily and effectively.

You don't have to change 100% overnight. Just start small. Plant a garden, get informed, sign a petition here, eat a higher percentage of local food there, and you'll be surprised how fast it all adds up.

However, the one thing that is not acceptable is apathy. The one thing that isn't acceptable is sitting there, shrugging your shoulders, and saying, "well, it didn't directly happen to me, so I don't care". This is wrong for 2 reasons:
1. Indifference makes everything 900 times worse.
2. It is affecting you, you just don't think it is. Let's say you pay federal taxes (as most of us lowly 99% do). Well, a startlingly high percentage of your taxes are being used to subsidize soy/corn production for feedlot animals, and also being used to subsidize fossil fuels. These companies, then take your money, invest it in offshore accounts so they don't pay taxes, remove American jobs to other places, and poison the water, air, & land.

I understand most people aren't as angry as I am. I'm a pretty angry person, in general. But not being upset that this stuff is happening, being apathetic, is simply unacceptable.

That's all for me this week. I'll probably post later in the week with some more challenges, so stay tuned.

And, just to get you in the proper spirit, I leave you with the end of Percy B. Shelley's "Masque of Anarchy":

"Rise like Lions after slumber 
In unvanquishable number, 
Shake your chains to earth like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you- 
Ye are many — they are few"

<3 ManicPanic