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Frankly, My Dear, I'm Trying to Give a Damn

Today we say hello to the one reader in the United Arab Emirates.  Thank you for your (accidental, likely) readership.  I am ashamed to admit that I didn't know where the UAE was until I Googled it.

Which brings me to today's blog post.  My ignorance and and subsequent Google search, that is.  But really, I have something far more scary to talk about.

Apathy. 

Many of the people I go to school with and are very much in contact with are afflicted with this particular disease.  Of which there may be no cure.  Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road, has perhaps said it best, "It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little Goddamn mediocrity.” 

I would amend Mr. Yates's statement by attaching two words to the very end: "...and entitlement."


By nature, I am not an optimist.  I have rather high expectations of people, and naturally, they don't get met very often.  In some ways, this has morphed me into quite the cynic, which is depressing, because I'm just too damn young to be there yet.  So, I fight the cynicism, and I'm afraid I come out a bit righteous and condescending.

(There it is.  I hope my dear readers will not flee at this rather scathing self-portrayal...just remember, this is all tempered by a good, healthy dose of hopefulness)

I suppose I could go on here and grouse about the indifferent nimrods I come into contact with frequently...but what would be the point?  Will they read this and change their dispassionate ways?  Not likely.  Am I going to feel better?  No.

But another author has some wise words for us...and I'll try to keep them in mind as I go out and do my thing...

"The opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."   - Elie Wiesel


If you don't give a shit, then you're not living.

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