It was an ordinary day. I was going to go take pictures of the Staley art show for the newspaper. There were some people still milling around. As I was taking pictures, someone I knew came up to me and started to trail behind me. He critiqued me here and there, informing me on the things I was doing incorrectly. It was a usual routine. He told me what he felt I was doing wrong, teased me, and called me names. It was only a minor annoyance; nothing I couldn’t grit my teeth and smile through. I kept on taking pictures.
My evening took an unexpected turn. He grabbed my arm and yanked me back. Suddenly, it wasn’t just verbal. Alarmed, I tried to get out of his grasp. Rather than letting me go, he gripped harder. As I mentioned earlier, there were still a few people in the art show. My pleas for help went unanswered as they uncomfortably looked away.
America has a serious problem. To be honest, America has a laundry list of them, including but certainly not limited to obesity, economic downturn, a struggling education system, and an addiction to quick fixes.
But I think the worst and the most easily cured is the apathy problem. Apathy causes us to cease caring about important things. We stop caring about our friends, our family, our fellow humans. We stop caring about our previously mentioned laundry list. We stop caring about changing and helping the world.
I read once that if you simply didn’t make the world worse, you were doing okay. But I think otherwise. If you just watch the problem, you are a part of it. If you just watch your son spiral into depression and mental illness and later shoot up a school or a movie theater, you are a part of the problem. If you complain about the lack of change in the education system but refuse to change your own classroom, you are a part of the problem. If you just watch a young girl being bullied, you are a part of the problem.
Because you know what? As a human being, another person’s problem is your problem too. The bell tolls for you as well. Why? Wouldn’t you want someone to care if it happened to you?
I know I sure did.
