I may have been a little drunk when I wrote this but I read it again when I was sober and it sounded ok. I have no idea what category to put this in.
As I looked around the canteen on my break, I was confronted by the faces of the apathetic masses. All engaged in idle chit-chat concerning who watched what soap last night, who has the latest ring-tone for their phone, where were they going on holiday, and if they could afford it.
I enquired how a friend’s diet was going, sarcastically, as she drank a pint of milk and sat eating a packet of crisps.
“Not too bad” she replied earnestly.
“Milk’s good for you isn’t it?”
I then proceeded to inform her that while a balanced diet with milk was good for you, a bag of crisps and a whole pint of milk does not constitute a balanced diet, and that she had in fact consumed almost twice the daily recommended allowance of fat in just one sitting.
I then had to leave the conversation to correct another friend on a few “stories” they were reading in the tabloids. After answering many of their questions about my news sources I was surprised to find that most of them, like me, had an internet connection. Yet it seemed like I was the only person that utilised it. One such friend of mine even has a 4mb broadband connection just for playing his PS3 online.
These small events reminded me just how apathetic about the world most people really are. I felt like I was working with a bunch of sheep, not wanting to wander too far from the path that the media and government set out for them. They all love to complain when something happens, yet not one of them does anything about it.
I began to wonder how and when this happened. How did we become such apathetic, celebrity obsessed idiots, watching the world go by while we watched TV?
As that question ran through my mind, the answer hit me. Television, or more precisely, entertainment and advertising.
It started in the modern age with the radio, then television, and now computers. The entertainment industry as a whole is designed to make you buy what they say, watch what they say, read what they say and sit back and be entertained.
It also preys on people’s need for having something better than their neighbour and the need to fit in. I know that last sentence seems like an oxymoron, but that’s exactly what people are trying to do when they purchase a better car than a friend. It’s the same with the latest gadget, they want the latest toy so that their friends will look up to them and be a part of the group.
The more and more people focus on entertainment, the less they care about real world issues.
People are constantly complaining about the price of petrol (gas for you yanks) the rising food prices, and many more problems. They then go back to watching TV and playing on the computer in their quiet servitude hardly ever giving it a second thought. It seems to me that most people don’t want the world to change; they simply want to be kept happy until they die, never thinking of the struggles that their children will face in the coming years, or even giving the future much thought at all.
Most of the people I know can only look as far forward as their next holiday, or their next birthday. Even the younger people I see are only interested in living for the weekend. They (young and old) are happy to waste their life away not caring what happens tomorrow, simply content with today.
Some people don’t want change. Change would mean they would have to do something about it. And this is how your government likes to keep it. The people are all to busy worrying about what celebrity is in rehab, or infighting about immigration to notice that the government is slowly taking away what little freedoms we have. Our own apathy is their friend, their ally.
Religious apathy is exactly the same. Some people are far happier to follow the crowd than question what they truly believe in and search for the answers on their own. Even when the preachers of their religions teach something that a person will find goes against common sense and morality, people will follow like sheep as they believe what they are doing is gods will.
Questioning how things work has helped push mankind forward through the years yet when it comes to certain areas of life; some people are simply stuck on the rail, sliding along on the inevitable conclusion that will be their own death, not caring about anyone else but themselves.
It’s about time we take a little time out, break off from that rail and question the world around us, and maybe, just maybe, do something about it.
