Is it time for less apathy and more care?

I love a doom scroll with the best of them, but I am energetically protected and usually aware that I am wasting my irreplaceable time. I employ care, knowing that what I like will be delivered to me. I opt for the funny over the angry. I mute accounts and unfollow many.

Where you may know that if you watch a particular news broadcast or read a certain newspaper, you will hear about the divisive right-wing or the woke left; it’s a choice.

The problem with social media, including this site, is that what you see when you open it is not a choice. Your mood can swiftly change for better or worse depending on what is presented to you. Something to make you smile or the latest load of horse manure.

Suddenly, you can be expending energy, frustrated by a scenario way outside of your control, and you stop focusing on what is yours to change. What lights you up. Your gift for the world. Instead, you feel overwhelmed, tired, or even helpless.

Who benefits from your distraction? Who earns from your doom scroll?

It may seem like it’s only the platforms that earn advertising revenue from your attention.

But this distraction is by design.

Your apathy is useful 😳

For the many things my covert narcissist mother failed at, she positively instilled that my vote mattered. I remember finding my Great Aunt’s voting card on Ancestry, and noted that she had registered the moment voting rights were finally granted to women. I sensed her appreciation for the Suffragettes and felt so proud of my female ancestor.

With this lens during the recent UK local elections, I was appalled to hear from several young women that they’d not voted because they “don’t understand politics”. Somehow, I bit my tongue, sad that their lack of curiosity would cost other people because the insidious rely on apathy to harm. They rely on your overwhelm, your belief that your voice doesn’t matter, and your choice to opt out.

But when I don’t understand something, I pull out my phone and have a good dig around Google. Engaging my brain, disbelieving the AI summary, and scrolling through multiple sites to absorb different points of view and data, to aid my understanding. With a sourcer’s thinking, I can even go to page 2!

As a Gen-X, schooled before the modern internet, I appreciate this access to knowledge, and I certainly don’t believe what I see first.

Perhaps that’s the gift of being a Highly Sensitive Person. As Dr Elaine Aron explains, ‘This innate trait reflects a type of survival strategy, being observant before acting. The brains of HSPs work a little differently; more aware than others of subtleties. This is mainly because the HSP brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply.’ This certainly explains my concerns around AI in hiring, even when called a dinosaur by the tech vendors whose claims never sat right; the truth, now emerging in the wash.

Maybe it’s just years of hearing dis- and misinformation and seeing the impact when people believe and act on it, or possibly worse, are apathetic. Overwhelmed people, who instead of turning off the distractions and trying to understand, leave it to others or don’t carve out time to investigate and learn, even though the outcomes impact their lives.

The self-harming apathetic.

Those being distracted and manipulated by design.

You don’t need to look far to see who benefits from apathy. It’s those who exploit systems to the detriment of others and the planet. Including those who place corporate profits and shareholders over employee and consumer welfare.

Lose the apathy and care

Hopefully, eventually, we will all see that the world needs to change; that too many of Earth’s inhabitants are suffering, not thriving. But if you remain unwilling to investigate, be curious, or wake up to the reality that keeps you distracted, the insidious continue being enabled.

It’s time to be a human being.

Not a human doing, distracted and letting the world happen to you.

For the sake of yourself, your loved ones, and the greater good, employ care, not apathy. Up your curiosity, fact-check, dig further, sense-check, and for goodness sake, unplug. Sit in silence with the information and allow your mind, using that wonderful organ between your ears, to wander and connect dots. Breathe deeply and check in with your quiet, all-knowing inner voice, who will guide you well, if you only stop long enough to hear it.

Apathy got us here: rage and division. Us and them. AI versus human. Ultra-rich versus poor. Left versus right. Corporate greed versus human health, even survival. And so on.

It is time to employ care.

Life is not being done to you.

It is yours to create. (Something I never believed possible until I healed!)

Your voice matters.

Your gift matters.

Silence is your friend

Does sitting in silence freak you out? Does the thought of taking time to hear your own thoughts fill you with dread? Are you too busy being busy?

I get it. Before I healed my emotional wounds, I found it impossible to be still. The idea of being able to meditate laughable. But then, as I share in The Damage of Words, I discovered that this was a trauma response; being busy was a way of numbing my pain and not feeling.

Those who succeed in the future will be those who can sit comfortably in silence, pondering and being curious. They won’t be shy to challenge a concept or go against the flow if they see through the veil or other possibilities. They won’t be disruptive to numb; they’ll be disruptive for the greater good, caring about outcomes and the bigger impact.

It’s time to heal anything that stops you from feeling happy and whole.

It’s time to care for ourselves and, therefore, the impact we have on others.

It’s time to ditch apathy!

And quit the self-harm.

P.S. If you want to startle yourself, read Stolen Focus by Johann Hari