1747: I Still Don’t Care

Just slightly over two years ago (really quite surprisingly close, now I look at the dates), I pondered the subject of how I Don’t Care about certain social issues.

That particular rant — kind of shocked how little things have changed in two years, to be honest — was inspired by the amount of time certain people spent pontificating on Twitter about how awful certain groups were towards other groups. Whether it was racism, sexism, ableism or any of the other bad -isms, there was always someone on hand to loudly denounce anyone who displayed one or more of these traits as The Worst Person Ever.

I’ve tended to find over the years that the more I find myself seeing the same things said over and over — and the more hyperbolic those things are — the less I’m inclined to care about them, until eventually you cross some sort of apathy event horizon and find yourself feeling completely and utterly unmoved by even the most tragic of human suffering. Desensitisation is very much a real thing — although I’ll qualify that at this stage by saying that I am by no means desensitised to things like violent imagery or things happening to those who are close to me and that I care about.

I was reminded of this feeling today when a friend got in touch and told me about some dude I’d never heard of supposedly sexually assaulting a whole bunch of people, the dodgy things he’d said on Facebook and the rather specific, creepy details that his alleged victims had said independently of one another. Now, I knew that I was probably supposed to feel outraged about this apparent miscarriage of justice, but the fact is, I just couldn’t bring myself to care even a little bit about it. I couldn’t bring myself to Google who this dude I’d never heard of was; I couldn’t bring myself to look at the news stories; it just didn’t matter to me.

And, you know what? I don’t actually think that’s necessarily a bad way to be thinking about things. While it would be nice if all the good people in the world could wave their respective magic wands and make all the bad people’s dicks fall off (where applicable), we all know that isn’t the way things work. And it’s all very well and good and probably morally admirable to get upset on other people’s behalf, but there are an awful lot of bad people out there and only so many hours in the day. I know I’d much rather be concentrating on my own life and the wellbeing of those immediately around me (in social, not necessarily geographical terms) than wasting time — yes, I do think it is a colossal waste of time — getting angry on behalf of people I’ve never met, will likely never meet and have absolutely no means of relating to, helping or indeed having any impact on the lives of whatsoever.

Why do I say this is a good thing? Doesn’t that make me some sort of woman/ethnic minority/disabled person-hating narcissist? Well, no, of course not — although a woman/ethnic minority/disabled person-hating narcissist would say that, wouldn’t they? The simple fact is this: very few people are real “heroes”. Very few of us have the power to make a true difference in the lives of people we’ve had absolutely no contact with whatsoever. And it’s not good for one’s mental health to continually get upset and angry on behalf of everyone who is wronged in the world. I’ve seen one friend go down that road, and frankly they became rather insufferable as a result. More than that, though, it seemed impossible for them to ever be happy, because there was always something new to get upset and angry about; they were perpetually in a state of anguish and fury, because there was no way to fix this broken world we live in. It was heartbreaking to see, and there was nothing I could do to help them.

Ultimately all most of us do is try to be the best people we can be to the people who do matter to each of us: family, friends and the acquaintances we come into contact with on a regular basis through work or other activities. If everyone simply tried to be a bit more excellent towards one another in their own social circles, the world would probably be a much more pleasant place overall.

Unfortunately some people simply appear to be hard-wired to be as un-excellent as possible to the people around them. And that’s not at all cool, but if you have nothing to do with those people, harsh as it may sound, they’re not your problem. They have to either recognise the problems they have themselves and do something about it, or the people who are close to them and care about them have to take action. You, as some random stranger on the Internet, have no influence, no power and, moreover, no real right to interfere with that person’s life. Concentrate on dealing with your own issues, because everyone’s got them to varying degrees, and if you’re one of the lucky few to be in a place of relative contentment? Enjoy it, for fuck’s sake; don’t go looking for trouble.

So, to sum up: I Still Don’t Care. And, I have to say, ditching social media has made it a whole lot easier to do just that. While my own issues mean that I’m still a way off feeling truly, completely 100% happy and content with my own life, I sure feel a lot closer to that ambition than I once was. And, should I ever reach it? I’m damn well going to enjoy every minute of it.