Kurt Cobain not only rocked it but also said a few smart things. One of them was, "My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whinning about for years.”
I'm no rocker, but I do agree with him. More often than not, I'm shocked by the apathy of my friends and colleagues towards seemingly important world issues. Now I don't expect everyone to rent-a-board and be a "professional activist", as my dad calls it, but I really do wish people become less apathetic and more interested and involved in what's happening around them. Living in a state of oblivion doesn't really help anyone.
We had the NZ general elections a couple of days ago. They take place every 3 years, you exercise your democratic right and make that right/left choice to choose a government that you feel would work for the best interests of the country. It hardly takes any time to enrol, even lesser time to go to a polling booth and vote. Yet, only 68% of our eligible population voted. Really disappointing if you ask me. Around the world, several oppressed, suppressed nations are currently protesting and leading a revolution to bring democracy and the right to choose their leadership body and here we are "cbfd" or "not bothered" to vote. Too many rocky spines!
I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum of apathy, when it comes to Politics, in fact, I get way too involved, be it local or international politics. Politics to me is not just about governing but about leading, about having the power to change, having the power to influence and the power to make big decisions that impact the smallest of things. Being a hopeless idealist, I think my political leaning is very left-winged. I don't consider being called a "tree hugging hippie" or a "socialist" to be offensive, in fact it makes me feel like an agent of change. I was extremely involved in the political race to the elections with a very leftist orientation. I knew what I wanted, I knew who I wanted and I knew why I wanted them but I began to wonder if I was getting too blind-sided. I would get so caught up in discussions with people with opposing views that I would just tune them out and drown out what they had to say with what I knew. I would delete or unsubscribe from Facebook friends with a strong leaning to another political orientation. "Bigoted", a word I once feared and disliked, could well be used to describe the way I was behaving. Taste of my own bitter medicine. Not pleasant.
So the night before the elections, in spite of being pretty sure about who I was going to vote for, I decided to read every party's policies (in brief of course) and rationally analyze them, before taking a "bigoted" decision. I had to challenge my worldview and really establish for myself why I was going to vote for a certain party. It was just one vote but a vote that could make a difference. I didn't skip any parties, did not overrule any because of their leaders or previous histories but genuinely took an interest to see how they would benefit me, my loved ones, my future loved ones and the country as a whole and decided to make a sound decision.
After closely scrutinizing and analyzing, I did stick with my original decision but this exercise helped me open up more and see things from a new perspective. I think at the end of the day, everyone wants the same thing, they just have different ideals of how to get there. It's up to you to support what you think would be most effective. I may not agree with you, I may even dislike you at that moment for liking what you like but I would like you more for having a stand...for not being apathetic!
Challenging your worldview and coming to terms with ideals vastly different from yours can be hard sometimes but every now and then, every idealist needs a reality check. Mine was on Friday. New thing, new perspective, new threshold for tolerance.
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