Last week, my pastor preached a sermon on Malachi 1-2, and in case you thought the Bible was boring, just know there is a verse in which God threatens to smear someone’s face with poop.
Who knew?
Anyways!
The message was on our need to confront spiritual apathy, and boy was it convicting.
Not only as a Christian but also as a person because lately, my default response to a lot of things has been varying shades of stone faced.
Which is strange.
Because by all accounts, 2020 has been rife with things that should have me sticking my foot through a wall with rage or, at the very least, feeling some sort of way.
And yet…
I’ve found myself pretty apathetic most days.
In fact, the only thing that has recently managed to get a significant emotional response from me is the fact that my house is currently under the dominion of the world’s most obnoxious and nocturnal cricket.
That is, until I kill it.
The rule in our house has always been bugs live outside.
They trespass.
They die.
But I digress.
We’re not here to talk about crickets.
We’re here to talk about being apathetic.
Specifically, how to stop it.
Because the point my pastor drove home last week is that apathy is not only a bad thing.
It‘s an evil thing.
And upon reflection, I completely agree.
So this week, we’re going to talk about what are, I think, the three major causes of apathy:
- Safety
- Selfishness
- Impotence
In the hopes that by addressing all three, we can more successfully stomp out apathy.
Apathy Cause #1: Safety
I recently finished reading Regarding the Pain of Others by the late Susan Sontag, and one line in particular really stuck out to me:
“Wherever people feel safe–they will feel indifferent.”
Yes and amen!
I can’t be the only one who’s experienced this.
I mean, this year has given pretty much everybody ample opportunity to see just how apathetic–even blasé–many people can be when they aren’t directly affected by something that others are experiencing.
I know for me personally the two big heart-checks with respect to this were my initial response to the pandemic as well as the George Floyd protests.
In both instances, I was pretty disinterested.
At least to begin with.
After all, neither of those issues were affecting me personally.
No one I knew had COVID, and while I was sad about what happened to George Floyd, it wasn’t like I knew him.
As such, I felt pretty insulated.
Secure.
Unaffected.
Safe inside a hermetically sealed bubble.
And then two things happened.
My aunt and uncle got COVID, and some of my dearest friends started talking about how George Floyd’s death had affected them.
And very, very quickly indeed I realized I couldn’t maintain my apathy.
Because my family and friends were hurting.
People I loved were in pain.
And because of that, I couldn’t look away.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how that works recently, and I came to the simple conclusion that being “safe” isn’t actually a solitary thing because when it comes to people I love…
What hurts them hurts me.
What hurts them hurts me.
Therefore, as long as I love somebody other than just me, myself, and I, apathy cannot be a part of my life since even if I am 100% safe and secure at a given time, odds are good that that will not be simultaneously true of everyone I love’s lives.
Because, frankly, my hermetically sealed bubble has a lot of people inside.
So…
If you, like me, have recently been shrouded in apathy, now might be a good time to drop a line and see if everyone you love is doing alright.
And if you’re like,
“Psh–all I really care about is me, myself, and I.”
Read on!
Because apathy cause #2 has a hold on your life.
Apathy Cause #2: Selfishness
I recently re-read Twelve Years A Slave by Solomon Northup, and holy cow should that be a required read.
Seriously.
There is so much truth about the human condition in that book that it’s honestly kind of mind-boggling.
However, when it comes to the relationship between selfishness and apathy, there was one thing Northup said that really struck me.
Writing about his sadistic master Edwin Epps, Northup noted,
“Supreme selfishness always overmastered affection… He loved as well as baser natures can, but a mean heart and soul were in that man.”
If you recall our discussion about safety above, it was my love–my affection–for my family and friends that impelled me to quit being apathetic.
And yet…
Affection may not be enough to overcome apathy if selfishness is present.
We all know this.
After all, it’s one thing to feel for another human being–it’s another to act accordingly, and if everything is about me, me, me…
Well.
While selfishness doesn’t preclude sympathy, it does a really good job of inhibiting altruistic activity.
In her autobiography, 19th century philanthropist Annie Besant said as much, writing,
“Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert themselves to help it, and fewer still will risk anything in its support. ‘Someone ought to do it, but why should I?’ is the ever re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability, but ‘Someone ought to do it, so why not I?’ is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution.”
Now, I’m a bit (a lot) more optimistic than Besant.
I don’t think it takes centuries to get from “why should I?” to “why not I?”
In fact, I think it can take seconds.
Because all you need to do is grasp the simple fact that you are not here to make a living.
You’re here to make a difference.
That’s what one of my all-time favorite pastors often says, and I could not agree more with him.
“We’re not here to make a living. We’re here to make a difference.”
Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
So you see, if you are asking “why should I?,” you are actually failing at life.
Because your weak-kneed amiability–your practical apathy–is a big ole neon sign that you are failing to do what you were created to do.
You are failing to be what you were created to be, and the One who created you does not take that lightly.
In fact, if the threat to high-five your face with poop is any indicator, I’d say it makes Him pretty angry.
But lest you now think that the best thing for you to do is attempt to be as zealously selfless as you can be for fear of being dung-slapped by the Trinity, we need to talk about the third major cause of apathy.
Apathy Cause #3: Impotence
I will never forget the moment I re-watched the movie Pink Panther as an adult and realized that Steve Martin’s “miracle pill for the middle-aged man” was not–as my mom had told me as a child–headache medicine.
Nopity. Nopity. Nopity. Nope.
T’was a pill to help him get an erection.
Because, you see, his mind was willing, but his body was weak.
Now…
What does that have to do with apathy?
Well, from what I can see, a major cause of apathy is, ironically, the desire to do something.
Revisiting Regarding the Pain of Others again, Sontag says the same, writing,
“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers… If one feels there is nothing ‘we’ can do and nothing ‘they’ can do either, one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.”
You see, when it comes to apathy, it’s not always a lack of desire that’s the problem.
It’s a lack of ability.
Put simply, if the mind is willing, but the body is weak, things can get (as many middle-aged men will no doubt attest) frustrating.
Frustration is an extremely unpleasant emotion, and if it becomes too all encompassing, most people elect to simply feel nothing.
Which is, in brief, how impotence begets apathy, and sadly, nowadays impotence is all over the place.
In his iconic work Amusing Ourselves to Death, the late Neil Postman said this:
“We have here a great loop of impotence: the news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.”
Talk about frustrating.
Add in the fact that we now exist in a world where news and information are, to use the 16th century meaning, ejaculated 24/7, and it’s no wonder that people have become so apathetic.
So what can be done about it?
First thing:
Turn off the TV and step away from your phone and computer screens.
I’m not even kidding.
Because when it comes to stomping out impotence-driven apathy, closing the gap between desire and ability is key, and modern technology exacerbates that gap by showing us everything.
Every evil, injustice, and social ill is readily displayed for all to see, share, like, and retweet, blowing out our desire to do something without proportionally increasing our ability to actually do anything.
And hear me.
Seeing injustice, suffering, etc. and wanting it to stop no matter where, how, or when it’s taking place is not and never will be a bad thing.
But when what you’re seeing is something “about which you can do nothing,” it quickly becomes frustrating, and conscience raising quickly gives way to conscience fading because even though we may wish to be the all powerful One who never grows weary or weak and never needs to slumber or sleep, that isn’t you and it isn’t me.
So…
Instead of being glued to a screen rife with things about which you can likely do nothing, I suggest you get out in your community and do something.
Volunteer.
Start a petition.
Give someone in need something to eat.
Donate to Goodwill or The Salvation Army.
Do a hundred–a thousand–other things that are already within your reach because, frankly, how can you hope to have a heart that beats across the country–even the world–if yours doesn’t beat across the street?
That’s all for this week!
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