A Study in Apathy | Teen Ink

A Study in Apathy

April 22, 2014
By Pamplemousse SILVER, Gilbert, Arizona
Pamplemousse SILVER, Gilbert, Arizona
7 articles 1 photo 69 comments

Favorite Quote:
"To be happy, Don't do whatever you like, Like whatever you do" -James Barrie (author of Peter Pan)


Apathy is the friend of druggies and drunks, of secretaries and students, and of me.
Apathy: not caring; giving up.

I’ve reached that point, that point that feels like one of no return. For how can I return if I’ve stopped moving, if I’ve reached a standstill, a stalemate against time and choice and myself. How can I return if I am no where, if I am lost, if I do not know where I am. For what, where, how it matters not. Numb. Is the only way to describe it. Dulled by my own failures I’ve chosen (was it really a choice though? if so then I did not choose willingly) to fall…to freeze. Success no more, progress no more, doing no more, failing no more. My only failure is that I do NOTHING. Nothing but breathe and think and breathe and think and breathe and think and breathe until it overcomes me, deeper, deeper, heavier, heavier as I think of the disappointment I am to myself. No, not to anyone else, but me. Only me.

I’ve become my own worst enemy, a victim of the terrors of my own mind. I lay awake and feel It. It creeps under my door, crawling under my covers and down my spine. It reminds me of everything I’ve done wrong. It reminds me of everything I’ve failed to do, all those regrets and opportunities missed that I’ve tried to forget. It is my anxiety. But then I try to combat it. I try to relax, to calm my mind, and to find peace. Yet peace is hard to obtain amidst stress and pressure, each pounding and pulling my anxious mind in opposite directions. So I stop. Stop trying. And I find peace through apathy. But it is not true peace, it is not even partially so. It’s a pseudo state of being. And above all else, apathy is deceiving. Apathy appears to be easy, slothfulness always does. But it is terrifying. In giving up, I’ve become susceptible to every influence, both positive and negative. I’ve become weak to the point that I can hardly stand, whether it be standing in my faith, in my work, or in my morals.


What do I want?
What would happen if I did nothing?
What does my future hold?
And Why even try?
These are the questions that haunt me as I wake each morning.
And each morning I find myself answering: Nothing, nothing, nothing.
As for the latter question, that is the answer I have yet to find. That is the reason I continue to search for. That is the true question behind my apathy. I yearn to know why, why, WHY I should even try.

That is the answer I need. With it I will find the true peace and dispel my apathy. Once I know why I can feel again.
But there lies the paradox of my self-actualization: Once I know why, I will care, and I will only care once I know why.
So in the end I remain stuck, lost in my own existence.

Or I must choose: between taking the easy, apathetic road or trying again and taking a risk (the greatest one of all) and risking failure. Without trying I would never fail, but without trying I can never succeed either. And with neither success nor failure I shall never progress. So to progress, I invariably MUST try once more.


The author's comments:
I had anxiety for a long time, and I thought that giving up was the way out- but it's not. You have to throw yourself into something you love, and into the arms of people who love you.

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