An Enemy Bigger Than My Apathy

If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I would've won.

Oh Mumford, your lyrics are so wonderful. I was listening to I Gave You All the other day on my way home from work, and was struck by this line.

I think I have a tendency towards apathy. I know, you're shocked, what with my plan to move somewhere around the world to fight poverty. But it's true. Let me explain.

I absolutely love completing things, finishing,being able to say something is done. The evil in the world today, things like poverty, slavery, oppression, you can't really finish fighting them.  We can have major achievements in combating them, but the corruption of the human soul keeps us from ever really being rid of them. My temptation is not to get involved in something so big and awful, something I know I can't defeat.  And to make matters worse, there are so many awful things to think about.  I know a lot of them are connected in many ways, but even if we end poverty, there will still be oppression and slavery. Sure, they might be less, but they won't be gone.

This tendency towards apathy is most definitely a product of the information age. Back in the Downton Abbey days and before, they didn't really know about all this social injustice.  Sure, they saw the occasional poor person, but mass oppression by their government on people in other countries, pretty much unknown.  They were ignorant of so much simply because of the S-L-O-W speed that information traveled at.  With everything at the tips of our fingers, we learn about all the problems.

But really, all of these awful things in the world are HUGE!  Is our apathy really so great that such horrendous evil doesn't even move us to action.   I guess the real kicker is that these enemies very rarely affect us directly.  We can live our lives without having to think about the way other people live and the oppression or corruption that helped put them there.  So really, maybe, our enemy is just our selfishness, the me-centered life we celebrate here in the West.

I know so many things I do in my life are about making myself more comfortable.  Making things easier for myself. Most of the time I don't help homeless people simply because I don't like talking to strangers (Ask any of my friends, I don't like strangers, no matter who they are.  Even though I argue with them and just say that my mother taught me well.)  And I don't get involved in rallies and movements because they inconvenience my life, take me out of my routine. (Seriously though, I love my routine, its what gets me through most days.  Again, the friends can vouch for this.)  I'm so unwilling to make myself uncomfortable in the little ways, even for the sake of another, even to combat or raise awareness for things like poverty and trafficking.  Like so many in my generation, I want to feel like clicking a button is enough.  Don't get me wrong, clicking a button is still a good and helpful thing.  But are all those clicks really going to get much done?  Maybe it's time we start realizing the necessity of being uncomfortable sometimes.

What do you think causes our apathy??