The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. — Elie Wiesel
This quote comes from Ellie Wiesel, who if you didn't know is a Holocaust survivor the author of the book, Night. If you have not read it go do so. This book tells his story of the Holocaust. One of the main things I found quite notable in the book was apathy. Apathy is a “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.” To be concerned is to worry or to be anxious, about something. I have this friend, he used to always bring up this theme of apathy when talking about his prayer life. And so, I have been thinking about this for a while now. Within the last few weeks, I started to really understand the problems of apathy. This post goes right alongside with my last two: Wasting time, and suffering. If you haven't read those and you have time, go check them out.
The most deadly poison of our time is indifference. — Maximilian Kolbe
Now the words apathy and indifference can be used almost interchangeably. Indifference is a “lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.” Both of the quotes I used have come from a time during the Holocaust. I don't think there is any way someone could say that there wasn't a sense of indifference during that time. But what about today? I often find myself saying “it doesn't matter or I don't care.” Now, I think this is sometimes true. There are some things that will not affect anything, but usually the reason I say it is because I am trying to get myself not to care about whatever it is. Which is fine for some things, but then I have to think how many times do I say this about relationships? Or just about people who have seemed not to care about me in general? Maybe for some of us it’s about things we do not think we can change and we do not want to worry about it so we just say it doesn't matter. Or you just stop caring about it? Maybe it is your prayer life. It’s hard to live a good special life, and have a good relationship with God while also doing things, everyone else is doing, whether that be drinking and getting drunk, or maybe it's just gossiping, or saying bad words. Big or small, I think a lot of times we find ourselves, saying we don't care. We try to justify our actions to the point where we just don't care anymore.
Whenever I think about abortion I always have to wonder how on earth anyone thinks that is okay, or acceptable. I think the truth they do not think it is okay. Every time I have gotten into a debate about abortion no one has ever said it is okay to murder another human being. So then the problem usually comes down to what is human. This question is easily answered, the proof is there, but people do not want to care. The Nazi’s were told that Jews were not human. That they were just the numbers that were burned on to them. The Nazi’s didn't care what happened to them, they were indifferent to them. This seems like the same thing to me. We are told that it is not a human, it is just “clump of cells.” “It’s just a Zygote”, or “a fetus”. But we change the name to make us not care anymore. Apathy is something we have all felt from time to time. It is present in today's world as much as it was 60 years ago.
This gets me thinking what causes it? I think the cause is different for everyone. I think one thing that causes us, or me at least, to be indifferent toward things is inaction. A lot of times we say we care about something, maybe it’s a friendship, maybe it’s school maybe it’s our relationship with God. Whatever it may be, we say we care, but then never act on that. Do you say you care about a friendship, but then never talk to the person? Do you say you want to get an A in a class but then never change the way you study? Do you say you care about your faith or your relationship with God, but then never go to church or never even pray? How can you continue to care about something if you do not do anything to show yourself or others that you care? Inaction leads to indifference.
What makes people not act? I think a big cause of inaction is laziness.
It is so easy to be lazy with all of the social media, Netflix, and YouTube. We can stream anything we want in seconds. Wasting time has never been so easy or convenient. We waste so much time trying not to care that there is no time to actually care. When I watched a lot of stuff on Netflix I remember being completely okay with just doing that all day. I became lazy and stopped caring about other things.
Okay… I’m almost done. I talked about the real problems I think have been caused by apathy, and I talked about how we still have them today. I also talked about what leads to it. But how do you avoid it? How do you cure apathy? I think one of the best ways is to develop a good sense of discipline. If you make yourself do something that is good for you even if you don't want to, you practiced a control over your own body. (I talk about this a lot in the post Freedom - go read it if you can) When you can make yourself do something even when you don't want to, you will start to care about it. If you go out go your way or inconvenience yourself willingly for something or someone, you will start to care about it or them.
I always used to confuse the apathy and empathy. Empathy is the “ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” The best way to care about someone is to try and feel what they are feeling. This can be hard sometimes, but I think this is what all the great Saints were good at. St. Mother Teresa felt what the poor were feeling and wanted to help them. St. John Paul II knew what it was like to live in Poland as a Jew, he helped them. They both felt what others were feeling and they acted on it. What is my point? DO SOMETHING! The people and opportunities in your life aren't just going to sit a wait for you to start caring more. Show passion for the things you care about! Who knows, maybe you are what the world needs in that area. Try and feel what others feel and if you can’t do that then pray about it and ask for the Lord to guide you in that. Ask Him to help you to love like Him.
I would like to close with two thoughts or quotes. One is from my friend Garrett “Apathy is the enemy of greatness.” If you want to be great then get rid of the apathy.
Lastly, a song from Mumford and Sons: the song is called “I Gave You All.” the whole song is about him not caring about this person anymore, and kind of how he got to that point, but the best lyric is, “If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won.” Take that however you want, but I would suggest listing to the song.
Anyways…
These are just my thoughts
Go with God
Duncan.
