Apathy. The false anesthetic

One may find himself in situations where things are hectic, where confusion and lack of direction or guidance only fuel despair and stress. Emotions are tricky in the sense of deciphering them, not because of the messages that they bear, but because of the reflection that it enforces upon us. The self-judgement that it might inflict upon us that disarms our ego. Sometimes the emotion of fear is what is feared most.

Guilt, shame, immorality or cowardice are aspects that people want to avoid at all costs. Especially when they feel “cheated” by the system. When they have done their “duties”. When they have checked off their lists in a rule-abiding fashion, without questioning the default workings that they perceived and without nagging or making trouble for anybody.

And, out of the blue, the operation fails, their figure of authority or protection is visibly disappointed, the money is lost, the investment turned out a loss, the person of trust has betrayed, or any other scenario in which unexpected bad things happen as a conclusion. There remains nothing of the attempt at success. There remains just the inner trauma.

This inner trauma is painful. Not because it holds sadness or grief. But because it causes anxiety for the future. Of course, grief is awful and can flood one with bitterness and make him/her get lost in a vortex of self-judgement beyond space and time. But it is beyond space and time. It is locked away somewhere inside the heart, where nobody can find it and activate it. It is there to be buried and forgotten.. or maybe left for when the person is ready to confront those feelings, which are stacking up in time…

But there is a commodity that we humans treasure with insatiable passion and vigour. It is none other than Hope. Hope is directly correlated with the future. It is a representation of our future actions. Of our future successes and landmarks that we build. It is us, but not the “us” that we grew to know and get used to through the years. Not the us that we have been accustomed to accept, neglect and find small words to define it, only to integrate it in daily conversations in which we present ourselves. Yes, we identify with the future. And we protect this identity with the price of our lives.

So, the trauma that has been left as a violent mark of uncertainty, of danger and of lack of security is the threat now. It is there to remind us of the fragility that represents us and of the constant exposure to danger, discomfort and heartbreak. Man tends to draw the reality that he/she sees in the colours that he/she knows. Some draw the end of a relationship as a reminder that the infinity of possibilities is still there, that the diversity of the world is like a playground that awaits that person to make it his/her own, it represents freedom and adventure… or it can be seen as a landmark of the inevitability of loneliness. Discontent bears only dark colours that breed more discontent.

When people get too afraid to face the unavoidable aspects of life and lose faith as well as their lust, their curiosity or any other interest inherited by nature, not implemented inside of their brains by education, entourage, social standards, or any other type of doctrine, what do they do?

They build a wall around them. A fake wall. There are no walls that can shield a person from themselves. But this wall was never meant to provide protection. It was made to provide something to lean on. Something to shut away the pain, the confusion and the anxiety. It is apathy. The nothingness that feels safer that something-ness.

Now, I am referring here to apathy as being a self-induced paralytic that cancels away people’s feelings. That is what it is supposed to be. But is it?

Feelings cannot be cancelled away, just like the cause of those feelings cannot be cancelled away. It is more of a brain hack that creates the fake feeling of safety and peace. But what is this apathy created by? Was the nurturing will for protection the cause of it? Partly, it was. An egotistical protection, which separates reality from itself, because reality has been rough and insensitive before. But where else shall we live if not in reality. What is there left to discover when all of reality fades away. Is it even possible for reality to fade away?

Dissociating between the real world and the pessimistic sadness from within is the worst thing that a person can do to that sadness. Because it will never find resolve. It will never change. It doesn’t want to forget. It doesn’t want to forgive. It doesn’t want to move on. It prefers to rot in a fake fortress, than to risk being burnt from the sunlight.

What is there to be done in such situations?

If nothing else matters anymore, then find resolve. Obsess over what happened, over the causes and the power that only change wields, which lies only in the present and in the unavoidable future. Work with that sadness! But don’t leave it alone. Accept it but never shield it from what is rightfully hers: the opportunity to change. It is afraid. The heart cannot be the same after it had been broken. But it doesn’t need to! It needs to be accepted and to prove to itself that it can go further and that there is reason to. Just like it was before.

Will the world change? Will the danger go away? Of course not. But even regret and fear and tragedy exist for a reason. But if you choose the way of apathy, which is a self-righteous form of ignorance and passivity, does that not empower the reasons for its inception? Fear, tragedy and regret.

Choose the hard way! Choose the dangerous way of going further and risking it all. Do it with nurture, patience and self-discovery. Strategize and work with yourself. Don’t throw away the towel. Don’t give up on the only thing that you have, which is yourself. Sometime in the future, when you get back on your feet and you find once again the joy of life, if you do reflect on this past episode of your life, it will only seem like an obstacle that enabled your resilience to surface, to shine and to remind you that in hard times you did not abandon yourself! Just the opposite of the reason why you thought you needed the shelter of apathy.