It's official. Apathy has set in.

So, as the thread title states, apathy has set in for me.

I was walking through my dining room a little while ago, and I noticed my wife attempting (in vain, as usual) to successfully fill out health insurance information on the state website, which, because the site doesn't work, we, and our 1 year old son, are still technically not covered and you know what? I realized that I simply don't care anymore.

Please, do not mistake this for yet another "I hate Obamacare" thread, because it isn't. This is something else entirely.

This is in no way an "I'm leaving" thread, either. I'll be here, putting my two cents in as usual, but I won't be invested in any of it, as it really doesn't matter anyhow.

I used to read the news every morning before work, and engage in animated discussions with the guy who works with me on the early shift; I no longer do so, because no matter what I read, no matter what scandal arises, or what "new information" comes to light on any topic, I just can't get myself to care.

With the current administration alone, I have witnessed a seemingly insurmountable mountain of scandals that should have destroyed it, and yet nothing came of any of them. Life went on as usual, regardless of what had occurred, or who had died.

A government "shut down" occurred, and guess what happened? Nothing. All went back to normal as soon as both sides said "you know, what? Never mind." No one cared.

Yet, Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, or Miley Cyrus (insert starlet here, it really doesn't matter who it is) do something "outrageous" and the herd gets all in a tizzy.

A magazine asks an openly Christian man his feelings about homosexuality, which, in and of itself is ludicrous, since the answer would have been obvious to anyone, and all hell breaks loose on social media.

A man found innocent of murder paints a freaking picture and sells it, and injustice is rampant among us once again according to the rank and file.

I guess I simply no longer understand society; maybe I'm just getting old.

There is simply no place in this world for someone who actually expects consequences and repercussions for actions, or has even the remotest personal adherence to traditional morals and values, and even with that realization, I still don't care.

I have seen many posts on this site in which the poster claims that people are waking up, and the tide is turning, and other such nonsense, and the only thought that comes to mind for me is: Are you effing kidding me?!

So, in a nutshell, I think I'm saying that I have completely given up with regard to people, and the world in general; it's not like anything ever improves; it only seems to worsen.

I'm not looking for a pat on the back and a kind word, as I stated, I don't care. I think I just needed to put into words the fact that I've realized it, and have apparently accepted it.

From here on out, I'll just watch the world go 'round and slowly destroy itself while I write fictional stories and try to maintain some semblance of normality in my own home.

I'm not sure this qualifies as a rant, but it's as close as I can manage to come to it.

I think your hoping for a reply that hits the spot but all I can say is that you should keep at what your doing because feeling better is sitting right in front of you, waiting for you to engage.

Trying pressurising the energy that feeds your state of mind until it is more easily recognisable. Hard to explain but it works for me.

jonnyc55
I think your hoping for a reply that hits the spot but all I can say is that you should keep at what your doing because feeling better is sitting right in front of you waiting for you to engage.

Trying pressurising the energy that feeds your state of mind until it is more easily recognisable. Hard to explain but it works for me.

Honestly, if I had the slightest idea what would "hit the spot", I'd be on it in a heartbeat. With regard to what I posted, I have no idea what, why or how I got to this point, but here I sit.

reply to post by ProfessorChaos


Well your not on your own. I rarely watch the news and can't even be arsed to read a paper anymore. Why should I?...Everything is just utter crap!. The same immigration problems what nobody who needs to care about (like the government) on the pages. Wars, Stupid celebs who look like they are made of plastic roaming around. Who who gives a crap. I know I don't. I may be homeless the next few months for a little while but I don't even care about that. I have a car if needed, And at least i don't have to pay bastard council tax living in a ford Fiesta....Good rant btw

TheDoctor46
reply to post by ProfessorChaos

 

Well your not on your own. I rarely watch the news and can't even be arsed to read a paper anymore. Why should I?...Everything is just utter crap!. The same immigration problems what nobody who needs to care about (like the government) on the pages. Wars, Stupid celebs who look like they are made of plastic roaming around. Who who gives a crap. I know I don't. I may be homeless the next few months for a little while but I don't even care about that. I have a car if needed, And at least i don't have to pay bastard council tax living in a ford Fiesta....Good rant btw

It really is just a huge crap sandwich, isn't it?

So long as your apathy doesn't include your family - I applaud you.

Take a long break from the news, from the entertainment industry (hardly distinguishable these days), from everything going on in the world...take a year. Then come back and check it all out. I guarantee you nothing will have changed and you will laugh your tail off.

Cheers!

kalunom
So long as your apathy doesn't include your family - I applaud you.

Take a long break from the news, from the entertainment industry (hardly distinguishable these days), from everything going on in the world...take a year. Then come back and check it all out. I guarantee you nothing will have changed and you will laugh your tail off.

Cheers!

Exactly. I'll laugh it off, right into the looney bin!

And no, my apathy doesn't apply to my family itself, that is truly the only thing that matters to me.

reply to post by ProfessorChaos


Yes your right. It's a huge crap sandwich with huge christmas bells on ....I feel a lot better for not reading the papers and the news. My blood pressure remains stable

Good Rant. It is hard to constantly swim upriver. It has become very difficult to involve myself in humanity any longer. I find myself spending less and less time involved with them. I used to have huge passion for my current gig. Then I got really busy and mistakingly sold a bunch of Groupons. It was quite profitable for me as only about a third got used. However it exposed me and my rather high end boutique business to some of the worst people on the planet. Now I just go to work most of the time.

It is hard watching people give a bigger # about Duck Dynasty than they do about what is really happening to the world around us. Hell most people still don't know what Fukushima is all about or that it was anything more than a Tsunami.

Too damn many people that are too damn wrapped up in just themselves to give a crap about anything but themselves.

Try to do something fun with your family, it helps (:

TheDoctor46
reply to post by ProfessorChaos

 

Yes your right. It's a huge crap sandwich with huge christmas bells on

....I feel a lot better for not reading the papers and the news. My blood pressure remains stable

Same here.

I imagine the discontent of the OP and compare that to how I am ok with things because for me I use the news as a inkling to my own prophecies and research. I compile my own findings and conclusions. I make sure am not hung up on one view, person, notion etc.

I keep myself busy but I think that is because am quite manic.

Keep teaching yourself new things. Even if it means learning about psychological stuff. At least it is relevant to how you are currently and because of that it will be empowering and interesting.

Sad but true. Oh so true. I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm not quite there yet, possibly because I'm still young, dumb and naive, but state of the world is depressing me beyond belief. It's like...whatever happens, whatever is revealed, whatever anyone says, whatever anyone does...it doesn't matter, it will have no impact, so why even bother? It's hard to keep going when it feels like the world itself doesn't freaking care. Only the immediate present has any value left, the world could turn upside down and it would be business as usual.

One thing's for sure, the tide is not turning.

jonnyc55
I imagine the discontent of the OP and compare that to how I am ok with things because for me I use the news as a inkling to my own prophecies and research. I compile my own findings and conclusions. I make sure am not hung up on one view, person, notion etc.

I keep myself busy but I think that is because am quite manic.

Keep teaching yourself new things. Even if it means learning about psychological babble. At least it is relevant to how you feel. You never know you might discover a talent or keen interest.

Your optimism is dizzying, but I appreciate it.

Mamatus
Good Rant. It is hard to constantly swim upriver. It has become very difficult to involve myself in humanity any longer. I find myself spending less and less time involved with them. I used to have huge passion for my current gig. Then I got really busy and mistakingly sold a bunch of Groupons. It was quite profitable for me as only about a third got used. However it exposed me and my rather high end boutique business to some of the worst people on the planet. Now I just go to work most of the time.

It is hard watching people give a bigger # about Duck Dynasty than they do about what is really happening to the world around us. Hell most people still don't know what Fukushima is all about or that it was anything more than a Tsunami.

Too damn many people that are too damn wrapped up in just themselves to give a crap about anything but themselves.

Try to do something fun with your family, it helps (:

edit on 22-12-2013 by Mamatus because: Gwammer and speeeeling

On the brighter side of a very dark place, my family manages to be very content to keep to ourselves in our little padded cell while the inmates ransack the rest of the asylum.

You seem exalted in the power of reasoning.

But isn't life reasonless anyway?

Born to die... I mean what is the point in that.

I think you get to a point in life...usually in early middle age, though it doesn't have to be...where nothing makes sense anymore.

As a young man, the world was essentially well-ordered, so injustices and stupidity were worth getting passionate about as they were exceptions to the norm.

Nothing political in the world makes any sense to me of any sort or kind. It all seems like military standard, balls-out-the-bath, bat sh#t lunacy to me now, in my relative old age.

But 20/25 years ago it didn't.

It's just now I realise how utterly helpless I am in effecting any change.

It's the same at work; I'm expected to attend all sorts of meetings and my opinions are regularly sought with great earnestness.

But no one ever acts on what I say or seems to pay sufficient, or any, attention to it. Increasingly indeed, I am challenged or even contradicted.

It seems now people want to know what I think more than ever, but they go ahead and do all the crazy stuff they were always going to do anyway.

I suppose it's learned helplessness.

So I just take a back seat now.

Even on this forum, I rarely rise to the occasion.

CBA syndrome. "Can't be arsed."

reply to post by CJCrawley


You're probably right. I just turned 39 on the first of this month, so I certainly fall into the age category in your post, and I'm an old 39 (on my 3rd wife, have 3 kids, 20, 14, and 1).

The only sense of accomplishment I seem to be able to manufacture as far as "work" goes, is my writing career, which has definitely not by any means taken off like a rocket as of yet, otherwise I have to punch a clock at a place that I wouldn't urinate on if it were burning, like the rest of the wage slaves in this world.

I realize that some people actually like their 9 to 5, but I was never cut out for it, even though it is the particular stratum of society into which I was born (I'm working on rectifying that).

Anyhow, I like your term "Learned Helplessness"; it seems to fit rather well.

reply to post by ProfessorChaos

i seem to be the king of apathy for some reason since 2008 now i do not give a xxxx about anything even family if i turned on the news and it said billions dead i would not bat a eyelid .

when i hit my fortys i just wanted to be alone and got rid of everything in my life that bothered me i have the care factor of 0 most times my father has had 3 heart attacks lately and i will not even speak to him mother went into hospital on tuesday and i have not even bothered phoning as i do not really care about them i got me is my attitude now that really is apathy on a grand scale

i do not give a jott what is going on in the world very rarely watch tv for more than 10 minutes f the world is my attitude these days

reply to post by ProfessorChaos

There is simply no place in this world for someone who actually expects consequences and repercussions for actions, or has even the remotest personal adherence to traditional morals and values, and even with that realization, I still don't care.

You paint with a pretty broad brush, but still there is much in what you write that is recognizable to many of us.

I find it hard to believe, though.......... that you "still don't care", as in not really caring. I think you express the view of an indeterminant future for you and your family, and you probably do so because you do care.

I think what has changed a lot over the years is the sense of opportunity within a structural framework. We were once instilled with the idea that we could do whatever we could imagine, if we had the dedication to doggedly push on against all obstacles toward a goal that mattered to us.

We undervalue our teachers -- the lights that inspire our children to think, and learn and grow. We sometimes pay more attention to that which is difficult than that which is possible.

Global communications have been a blessing, and a curse. I think in these charged times, there is a higher tendency to replace our own sound judgement with that of a talking head that has absolutely no real and tangible relationship to our own situations.

We wanted an illusion of safety, but it cost us privacy.
We wanted prosperity and progress, but we didn't plan ahead to make it sustainable.
We want energy and power, but are repulsed by the brokers of same.
We want freedom to enjoy nature, but want someone to be financially responsible if we should be injured in the process.
We expect the government to stay out of our business, but take care of us when we stumble.
We are addicted to blaming someone for our failed dreams.

See? I'm prone to a few broad-brushed views of my own.

argentus
See? I'm prone to a few broad-brushed views of my own.

Aren't we all? Lol.

I have no problem admitting I used a broad brush, but the level of apathy that I feel is a very broad one itself.