Life's too short to be apathetic

If you find yourself lounging somewhere on campus today and you happened to forget to bring your iPod, I implore you to casually listen to the conversations of passersby. Not eavesdropping per se – more like changing the frequency on the radio dial. See what topics you can pick up. Hear what it is that other people tend to spend their time and breath talking about. Is any of it worthwhile discussion?

I seem to notice that most of the time it isn’t. I’m guilty of it at times too. Sometimes there is that justifiable knee-jerk reaction to talk to your friends about the weekend escapades. But more recently I’ve become very aware and alarmed at just how insulated and self-involved the average American student can be.

What really scares me is how many uneducated and uninformed Americans there are in this modern age of information. When we have the veritable world at our fingertips, why is it that so many people tend to automatically go for the proverbial ‘cookie jar’ of celebrity gossip instead of reading something more substantial, relevant and meaningful? Look, just as life is too short to drink lousy beer, it’s also too short to waste time thinking about menial topics. The economy is taking a nose-dive, the most important presidential election of our era is right around the corner, and yet still so many people lull themselves into mind-numbing conversations about sub-par reality TV shows. We have such high-functioning brains (frontal lobes and all!) – we should be putting them to better use.

There’s this great William Osler quote that goes something along the lines of: “By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy; indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction.”

As Robert Bartlett states in his 2003 article, ‘Souls Without Longing,’ “There is a malaise spreading among America’s college and university students, one that extends into the uppermost reaches of their hearts and minds, robbing them of delights at the moment they seem poised to enjoy them. This malaise leaves students with little direction or lasting desire and restricts their capacity to conceive of a noble and rewarding life; it encourages their pursuit of artificial and extreme joys that somehow always yield to lassitude or disappointment. The direction they should find on campus proves to be as elusive and evanescent as so much else in their lives: Universities have by and large forgotten the Socratic exhortation to “Know Thyself” that must guide an education worthy of the name. As a result, students are ill-equipped to know very much at all, least of all about themselves. the malaise in question is a fundamentally new and especially virulent strain of boredom. Before students can begin to find their way in college, they must first become aware of this new malady of the soul.”

As president of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Martin Seligman lamented that today’s youth are experiencing “… the worst demoralization we’ve had since we’ve been able to measure it…,” and linked the epidemic of alienation to lower productivity, lower initiative and higher school absenteeism. Studies demonstrate that apathy is comprised of emotional, social and goal-oriented components.

In a recent interview with Grist.org, Robert Redford said, “I do think there is a pervasive apathy among young people. Some say it’s because there’s no draft, some say it’s the consumerism, some say it’s the media. But I also sense change. I think the pendulum might be ready to swing back the other way, where young people start to engage. I think kids are beginning to realize that there’s more to life than just having an easy life. It hasn’t happened yet on the grand scale, but it’s rumbling. I can feel it underneath my feet.”

As a college student, you need to critically examine and reflect upon your value system. What do you truly place importance on in your life? Do those values translate over to how you choose to spend your time and energy?

Ben Eckold is a business senior with a minor in sustainable environments. “The Green Spot” will run every in this section every Tuesday. The column features a variety of writers on environmental and sustainability issues.