The Lighter Side of Apathy

I had to Google "the royal baby" to see why this phrase had crossed my computer screen more than a few times over the last couple of days. On finding information on the "royal" nativity, the breadth of my general apathy grew. The litany of "news" items for which I lament having wasted time on just reading the headline is enormous - but not normally, only today as I verified the justification of and for my apathy. Just to name a few...

• Mayor Anthony Weiner acknowledged messages between himself and a woman not his wife...
• VA Gov. Robert McDonnell announced repayment to Star Scientific...
• Pope Francis' push to bring the papacy to the streets...
• Europe's decision to blacklist Hezbollah...
• Starbucks teams with French-based Danone to create a Greek yogurt...
• Netflix aims to craft 'House of Cards' into 'Harry Potter' hit...

These were "top stories"! 

Apathy, according to Wikipedia is "a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion". This sounds pretty serious, but still, I find that the proposition does not motivate any measure of concern in me. My absence of interest in emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, and political matters is not what my apathy is about. I am apathetic about your emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, and political concerns - unless your concerns somehow directly affect me. And I am apathetic about the inconsequential personal activities of politicians, celebrities, my neighbors, my neighbors kids and pets. I am a lot more concerned about dog poop in the park than I am about anything the Prince, the Pope, Presidents, and Pop-stars may or may not be doing in their personal lives, and very very little about what they are doing publicly.

According to "positive psychology", my apathy may be a result of feeling that I do not possess the level of skill required to confront a challenge, but in fact I am probably over-optimistic about my abilities. The truth is that I really just don't care about those aspects of other people's lives. And there are more things for which a fuck I do not give.

By definition, I may lack a sense of purpose or meaning in my life, to wit I respond; So what? Some may feel that I exhibit insensibility and/or insensitivity, and their observations would be accurate on many levels, but still, I continuously and consistently could not care less.

My Truth About Television

It has been 20 years since I unsubscribed my cable television. Truth: If I still subscribed I would probably be a couch potato like so many of you. I love documentaries on history, science, nature, technology... and on and on. The "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan is an all-time favorite. I love movies - all kinds, and particularly romantic comedies, science fiction, historical fiction, and movies  based on true stories. I am an avid Equal Rights (activist) and global science news junkie. I like and have enjoyed many television shows such as Star Trek, Cheers, Seinfeld, All In The Family (did I just date myself?), Futurama, The Simpsons, and a few others.

So what keeps me from subscribing to my local cable company? There are two sustaining reasons: For one, the information and entertainment value does not justify the health risk; yes health risk. According to a research report (JAMA, 2011) by Frank Hu and Andres Grontved , for every two hours of TV viewing, the risk of type 2 diabetes increased 20 percent. The risk of cardiovascular disease rose 15 percent and the risk of early death rose 13 percent. Of course the health factor is about sedentary behavior and not the television itself.

So I could easily argue that my rigorous fitness routine would nullify, or at least offset the harmful effects of sedentary time in front of the television, and the argument would be valid. However, the critical term in the previous sentence is 'time'.

I already spend eight to ten hours daily in sitting in front of a computer, working, writing, and surfing the Internet. If I were to incorporate or replace some of that time with watching television there would be little time left over for living. And by 'living' I mean seeing the world in person; participating instead of watching. Life is too short as it is to spend any more time looking at pictures of it. I would rather be in the picture.