A Path: Apathy

by zhx

There was a time in my life, from late high school and for several years afterward, where I embraced a philosophy of my own design, which I called “aggressive apathy.” The idea was that not only did you not give a shit about what everybody else on the planet concerned themselves with, you went out of your way to not give a shit. Here’s an example: For the first several weeks after GW Bush was elected president, a couple friends and I went out of our way to not learn who was elected. That was not an easy task, but several of us pulled it off for quite a while. I was 18, the US had elected a new president, and I intentionally did not know who it was.

Because, really, how would knowing who the president was affect my life at all? Or affect anything? It didn’t, and I loved my philosophy. I even wrote a short essay in its defense, which was widely panned by my mom and a friend who had recently decided politics were really cool.

So fast forward a couple years and I’m a little older and maybe a little wiser, and I’d dropped aggressive apathy in favor of aggressively caring about shit, because that’s what smart people do. Though I had previously been an atheist out of apathy, I was now atheist for a reason and Christians were all idiots and fuck all Republicans because Republican invariably means Christian and Christians are the badguys and everything’s either black or white and I needed to pick sides in all things. I read a bazillion books from prominent atheist authors, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc, and thought I’d gotten everything pretty well figured out. My Facebook profile made things easier by giving me labels to slap on myself. Liberal. Atheist. Opinionated as fuck, and if we disagree, we argue until we agree that I am right. That was basically how things went for a couple years.

Then I joined Reddit, where there’s a fairly large and vitriolic atheist community, and I subscribed to their forum and read their articles and discussions daily. The problem is, the community as a whole is so fucking over the top, it’s a parody of itself. Everybody in there discussing religion and gods and blah blah blah are all condescending, elitist pseudo-intellectuals, parroting the same few talking points over and over and basically running a very simple argument completely into the ground. And then some. It slowly started to dawn on me: “Oh, fuck. I’m one of these people.”

But I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it, because election season was in full swing and I was busy frothing at the mouth whenever Republicans were on-screen and found myself identifying with politicians that have absolutely nothing in common with me, don’t even care who the fuck I am or what I want out of my life, and, aside from possibly sharing a few progressive ideas with me, are most likely terrible, terrible people. I loved Kucinich, but he was clearly too fringy, and who cares about who most closely represents you or your ideas if they can’t win, because it’s not about principles but winning, so I hopped on the Obama bandwagon pretty early on. Me and everybody else my age. I got swept up in the whole mess, attended his speech in Portland (with a million other people), argued with the Clinton supporters and, just like with my militant atheist days, generally made an ass out of myself.

When you’re this high on yourself, you come down pretty hard. Nina and I watched on election night as McCain conceded the presidency, and there was a brief moment of elation where I thought “Wow, I was a part of something really important here,” while people celebrated up and down Burnside street. Then it was more like, “…okay, now what?”

After he got sworn in and immediately started disappointing all the progressives that deluded themselves into thinking this guy was anything more than a moderate, I was over it. Just that quickly. It’s just politics as usual from this point on, and now that we all believe we made some sort of difference, everything goes back to normal. You know what difference it made when I voted for John Kerry in 2004? None. You know what difference it made when I voted for Obama in 2008? None. What was the point of all that passion, time, and energy? There wasn’t one. I was just tricked into taking sides in every single aspect of my life, and that is so completely unlike me, I’m embarrassed for it. When people split into factions, I’ve always created my own faction. When teams were chosen on the playground, I chose not to play, because fuck teams. In high school I didn’t believe in school spirit, and I have no pride as an American. These things are accidental by-products of my birth. I didn’t choose to be born in America any more than I chose to be born on the west side of my town, rather than the east side of my town, which dictated what high school I would attend. The shitty thing is, the things I was spending my time choosing — and choosing to be proud of — ultimately bore no consequence. Does it make any difference in my life or anybody else’s that I believe there is no god? No. Did it make any difference if I convinced a single supporter of Hillary Clinton to vote for Obama? Fuck no. What a fucking waste of time.

Since then I’ve started to develop an almost physical aversion to “heavy” talk. As soon as things start to sway political or religious now, I find my eyes rolling involuntarily. When people try to trick me into discussions like this, I will state something simply and briefly (if at all), and be done with it (I often try to change the subject, or ignore the conversation entirely). Does this make my opinions any less valid to me? No. I believe there is no god, and I believe that if you believe there is a god you are wrong. I believe that humans have an inherent right to healthcare, and that free market economies do not work. If you disagree with me, I believe you are wrong. Will I tell you you’re wrong? Most likely not. See, I quit giving a fuck. But not like “aggressive apathy.” The key now seems to be that I don’t care that I don’t care.

I have more important things to worry about. Like, trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my life, since I’m approaching 30 and don’t have a plan, or even a plan for a plan. This is partially a result of another thing I’ve come to realize in recent months: Every three years or so, I can look back at myself and say “Wow, I was a fucking idiot.” It happened at 25, it happened around 21, it happened around 18, and clearly it’s happening again. It just took me this long to realize that in three years from now I’ll be thinking “Wow, I was a fucking idiot,” so I’ve quit taking myself so goddamn seriously.

It’s very liberating when you finally realize you’re a fucking idiot. It’s probably the best start I’ve had in years.