Apathy

Before I begin the rant you've all been waiting for, I must first apologise for my absence the last month. I have had the flu, and have been without access to the Internet. I missed last months "Insane Imagery" and will hopefully post that this weekend. However, I'm back now and completely ready to rant.

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration." Dune 1965, Frank Herbert. This quote is memorable for it's vivid imagery and simplicity. Everyone has been scared before and everyone can understand the thoughts and feelings that occur when one is scared. This seems to make this quote more substantial, more real. And I assert a similar idea: Apathy is the soul-killer. Apathy is the slow but steady death of passion and thought that bring utter annihilation. I use the word soul as a synonym for inspiration, and not as an ethereal entity that acts as your mind.

Apathy has been a major concern of mine, first as my classmates succumbed to its allure, then as I battled it during my years of social anxiety. And now as the world hides from itself behind the shadowy cloak of apathy, I find myself rejuvenated, my normal wish to stay inside and do nothing destroyed, and a new desire to get out and work washing over me, soaking to my core. There isn't much that I can do, especially in gfc world, but without doing something I will go insane. Aside from looking for work, I am going to do my part to save the world. I will write on this blog, make my YouTube videos (currently in editing by the way), and I will be taking every opportunity I can find to discuss this problem and remove it. This will involve public speaking, so I'll be letting everyone know when I do it and how it went. As a personal note, my apathetic nature during puberty led me to become frail and unfit, lacking in self-confidence and stooped over to boot. I am rectifying the situation, working out more, eating healthier and visiting the doctor in regards to a overall health plan. This is all about me, I got off track.

Apathy is a major symptom of clinical depression, as there is virtually no difference between not feeling and hiding from your feelings. Depressed people don't want to show their feelings for various reasons, including being scared of what they'd see, or thinking no-one would like them. They need care and understanding, but because it's a difficult problem, they mostly get confusion or outright rejection. The first step a person can take to help inspire the world is to notice broad spectrum apathy for what it is, and try to help those they see with it.

Harder than noticing apathy in others is noticing it within yourself. If those around you seem worried, or you're bored 90% of the time, you might be depressed and hiding behind apathy. If you think you might be depressed, talk to someone, either someone you trust or a mental healthcare professional. Preferably the latter, as they have been trained to help and know what they are doing. A single apathetic person can deflate a whole room, and as such should do all they can to help themselves, if not for themselves, then for the inspired people they might meet.

Finally, apathy within a group is an easy fix. Anyone can do it, as passion can be contagious. A word of encouragement here, a pat on the back there is all it takes to bring someone out of a slump. If you're really up for it a well timed speech can cause even the least caring individual to become fervent. Even without a set stage a speech can work wonders. If whilst walking down the street you see the chance to inspire, take it. Talk proudly, passionately and with conviction, and people will listen. Let it come from within and people will be impressed by your passion, or have it prepared and let your words come out clear. There are other ways to eliminate the soul-killer, but this is a start, I call it the "Inspire the World Campaign". Please comment with your contributions and support, or point to the multiple flaws in my ad hoc plan. I can benefit from both.

crites evidentia logica.

My Social Experiment

In my last post, I pointed out a few things that I'd noticed about childhood, and school life. And I would suspect you would like for me to explain how I feel it has affected the adults of the world. Well, too bad. Today, I am instead going to explain an experiment I am going to conduct, and some research I am going to do, on the topic of the competitive nature of man.

First, I am writing a survey. Within this survey, it asks for age and gender, which will be used on for collaboration; and it will ask a few questions about different aspects of life. Of these aspects, the ones I am most interested in are relationships and education. Now, I'm no psychology student (yet), but I still feel that this information can be used to determine the benefits and detriments this system has on society as a whole.

I will not only be speaking with regular people, but also with businesses, schools, and other organisations. They will have both the questions asked of everyone else, plus a few that are for organisations only. With the line of questionging, this should determine how embedded competition is within the infastructure of society.

With this information, I'll draw conclusions about the welfare of the populace, as well as attempting to divine a plausible reason. If at all possible, I'll try and find a better solution, but without any experience in this field, I'll need some help.

That brings us to my experiment. It will be a long running experiment, if I can even get it started. I wish to test a idea of mine, though it may be difficult to find voluteers. My idea is that we survived the evolutionary process due to our cooperative nature. When people work together, the best abilities of each can be utilised better then if each person works seperately. As such, Children who work together throughout their education should have a more firm idea of the concepts presented to them, and of how to utilise their own abilities in the execution of said concepts. This basically means that a group of children, about the age of 5-6, would be placed in a group. This group is always together when learning. This includes grading systems like assignments and exams. As such, they'd be held to a higher standard. My thinking is that by the age of 18, not only is this group efficient at thier work, but have the understanding to survive outside of the group... though I doubt they'd want to.

Obviously this is a very strange, and difficult to organise, experiment; with far-reaching possibilities. It is also quite clear, that I haven't done much background research into the subject of childhood development. That being said, this is of course simply in the conceptual stage, and is far from being implemented, if it ever is. I am only posting it now so that I don't forget it, and to see if anyone else has ideas to put forth on this subject, or would like to help me.

The research part is also conceptual, however I should have the rough draft of the surveys in a month or two. Stay tuned to see how it goes.

Until next time - fui fides tantum in testimonium.

Childhood brainwashing

In my first post, I casually asserted that there is unnecessary competition and conflict in society, with showing proof of my accusation. This was wrong. In order to make up for this, I am here to show you: "My proof of excessive competition in society today". Maybe that's a little long, but it's informative.

Before I begin, I'd like to say that not all competition is bad. In fact, if it weren't for the competitive nature of science, we'd still believe physics was completely figured out with Newton. It's also useful in the market. If there was no competition, there'd be no choice of quality or price. My post today, is about the excessive amount of competition in society.

From a very young age, we are brought up to believe in the usefulness of competition. One of my earliest memories was watching a childrens program, and hearing about a competition they were running. You send in your best drawing, and if yours is the best you win a prize... I think it was a toy of some sort. I spent days working on my drawing, and when the prize was finally drawn, I didn't win, because someone else was better. Far better. It seemed like it was drawn professionally, thought that's probably because of how my mind was. This was sometime before I started school. It might seem minor, but the things children learn in childhood stay with them their whole lives.

In grade 1, we were taught (not directly) that in order to do well, we'd have to be better then the others in our class. This idea is fundamental in society, because without striving to be better then others, we'd only be average (Like everyone else). This also may seem minor, but considering that humans must be taught how to learn most effectively, and it's easiest to learn in you schooling years, this contest for good grades, and approval becomes so ingrained, it's hard to separate it from anything else in life.

Within the classroom was not the only competition. And I'm not speaking of P.E., despite the fact that it's technically not within a room, it is still a class. I'm talking of school houses. In my schools, both primary and high school, there were four houses, within which, every student and teacher was placed. Once every year we'd head down to the oval, and have race after race after race, starting with the youngest, and ending with the eldest students. The houses were given points based on the students who won. Not only that, we were taught different chants, depending on our house, which we'd yell at the top of our lungs, in an attempt to drown out the other teams, and score a few more points.

There was no point to this. Everyone got a little ribbon for participating, and the next day, every thing went back to normal. There wasn't even a prize! This was an annual occurrence for 12 years. 12 years! Then there was inter-school sport, where various sports teams were picked, and sent to other schools to prove that they're better then the others. Competition within competition within competition. Whether or not it was designed to be that way, childhood is a time to confuse us, while we're told to work together, but are rewards for working against each other. The end result is today's average adult, which I'll describe in length in my next post.

Until then - fui fides tantum in testimonium.