Apathy: The Longest Addiction

     Once upon a time, in a galaxy very close to us all, I gave a Salutatorian speech for my high school (50th graduation anniversary this year). The topic was “Apathy”. The best that I can say about it was that I didn’t spot anyone sleeping during the speech. The worst that I can say is that I could give the exact same speech today, with the same reactions, and the same results.

     Between many moves and changes of technology (my speech was recorded on a cassette tape), I don’t seem to have the text of my speech anymore. But, as I said, I could give the same speech — or write the same speech — today without much change. The one addition I would make would be an advisory that apathy includes not taking the time or energy to research and factcheck the information with which you are presented. I don’t believe that the word factcheck existed in 1975.

     Apathy and procrastination are similar. Both are delays but procrastination is expected to have an end. Also, apathy is supposed to be based out of lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. Procrastination says that you kind-of want to do it but not now, after something, or when there are two moons in the sky.

     Recentering on apathy. Why would a person lack interest/enthusiasm/concern in something? It might not be important. It might not be important to them. The second is more likely since, if no one felt it was important, apathy would not even be considered to be applied as a description. Once again, apathy is likely to be used only if they “should” care. Everyone should care about climate change, right? Women should control their own bodies, right? Everyone’s life is important, right?

    Let’s proceed as if there is some issue about which people should care — some issue that affects them or those they care about. Why don’t they have any interest/enthusiasm/concern?

• It’s not their problem. Possibly not — at the moment — but many problems tend to grow over time. Social injustices, for example, have a tendency to keep expanding to include more and more subgroups of people. Pollution in one area tends to encourage corporations to feel it is okay to pollute anywhere and it may start affecting you. Air pollution will depend on the direction of the wind. If you recognize that it is A problem, then deciding that it is irrelevant to you is not a good excuse.
  

• Their efforts won’t make a difference. So, now you’re all-knowing (omniscient)? You never know. By being brave and confronting injustice, and supporting someone, you might be preventing a murder or a suicide. You just don’t know the effects of your own efforts. And the multiplier effect can change things considerably. Sociologists talk about how small percentages (sometimes as low as 3 or 4%) can become “contagious” and change the behavior of the larger group. You really, truly, never know if your personal effort will make a difference. And you can be pretty sure that your effort, in combination with others’ similar effort, CAN bring about change.
  

• They have other things in my life that are more important. This is hard to argue against. We all have many things we need to do that are important to ourselves, or those we care about. But, it may be a matter of just examining our priorities a bit closer. Will watching five more minutes of anime be more important, in your life, than placing a call to your legislator to ask them to do the right thing? (Legislators primarily pay attention to contributors but some also pay attention to the interests of those they are supposed to represent.) Will it change your ability to live out your day if you pick up a stray piece of litter as you are walking along the street — how much time did that really take?
  

• They have personal issues that manifest in decreased energy and activity levels. Depression, burnout, addictions, diseases, medications, and other items of life can make everything “else” seem not worth doing. Yes, you need to take care of yourself before you can attend to the needs of others. However, it is not a cliché to say that helping others can lead to helping yourself. Twelve-step programs often incorporate reaching outward to make your inward self more supportable. All I can truly say in this area is that you can only do what you can do. Blessed be.
  

• They are opposed to the item. You hate being around those who have challenges in their lives and would prefer them to just “go away” rather than try to do something for them. You hate that other state and are glad that their citizens are getting cancer from corporate pollution. That “other” group should be treated badly because they aren’t as valuable as others. In such situations, you aren’t actually expressing apathy — though it could appear that way to outside observers. This is an expression of a wounded soul and I can only pray that you heal from your ills.

     Apathy is looked at from the outside as a lack of action. The causes of apathy can be manifold but it is as true today as it was true 50 years ago that we could really “change the world” if we can treat this societal illness.

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Choices: They always exist

 

     "I don't like either choice." "Why bother? Neither choice is any good." "I'm going to wait until there is a choice I like." One of the most glaring indications of the failure of students to come out of their formal, or informal, education with the ability to discern logic is that of not understanding the ability to reverse the direction of comparison. By this, I mean that if one object is worse than the other then -- automatically -- that means the other choice is better than this one. Having a "good" choice is not required for a person to make a better choice. "All" it requires (more easily written about than done) is to be able to compare choices.

     "Ah. But if I don't like either choice then I am indicating my opinion by not making a choice." Nope, you're just improving the odds of whatever you consider to be the worst of the choices. NOT making a choice for the better choice is equivalent to improving the chance of the worse choice being chosen. Or, in mathematical terms, no "+1" to the better choice becomes (by not making a choice) "+0" and the comparison is closer.

     It is possible that both choices truly are awful -- perhaps such that you aren't easily able to make a decision as to what is worse. At this point of choosing, there may be no possibility to create, or find, other choices that you consider an improvement. You are forced to fall back to choosing the better of the two. It is also an indication that you need to improve the selection of choices for the future.

     This can happen within a democracy where there are two (or more) stages of the electoral process. By the time of the election, a choice must be made between candidates. But, before that, there is a process where the candidate is chosen between various possible candidates. If you don't like either choice in the current election, then NEXT time get involved earlier in the process (and, for the current time, vote for the less bad). And getting involved doesn't stop at attending rallies -- you have to participate and then actually vote. But, that's for the next election. For this one, vote for the better.

     Lack of making a choice does not change inertia. A rudderless boat will move but only according to the whims of the wind and the waves. Making choices is a core aspect of leadership. Even a poor choice (if evaluated and changed when it is known it is the wrong one) is better than none because it allows focus of energy and future choices. There are a few special cases where only an informed choice is useful. Any other, non-informed, choice is just a guess -- and guesses are not necessarily an improvement.

     My wife and I like to watch Jeopardy! on a daily basis. Every so often, there will be a situation where the "question" is unknown to the contestants. One person guesses and fails. Then another person guesses and fails also. At this point, I am imploring the person on the television (yes, I know this is irrational as they cannot hear me) to "don't guess, don't guess". At this point, the person who has NOT guessed is "up" in relation to the other contestants (contestant A down x amount, B down x amount, the person not having guessed is UP x amount in comparison to A and B) -- they are in the same position as if they were the person to have guessed the question correctly. Of course, it they know the answer, answering is great. But if they also guess and fail they have just lost their competitive advantage. Yet, many of these third contestants are "caught up" in the moment and guess also.

     "Hobson's Choice" is a situation where there is really only "one choice". That is an illusion. There may be only one non-ludicrous choice but there is always the choice of doing something or not doing it. Get angry or don't get angry. Push the button or don't push the button. The consequences of one of those choices may not be acceptable (and the other barely acceptable) but we are really back into the same situation described in the first paragraph -- choosing the better of alternatives.

      We cannot create what is happening now but our choices often start processes on a path which will lead to future situations and choices. The choices of today make a difference for the future. We are always in the midst of a decision tree where each choice presents us with a different set of choices depending on that original choice.

     And not making a choice is still a choice.

Second-guessing: (or even third)

 

     If you are on social media at all, you have been presented with survey questions -- usually in the form of multiple choice. Sometimes the choice is "obvious". Sometimes one or more choices are unclear -- they could mean more than one thing. Sometimes you want another choice (sometimes they will say "other" and ask you to clarify in comments). But, what happens after you have made a choice?

     Often, the "survey" will immediately return the current statistics with what percentage of people had which answer marked. Sometimes, they only tell you results after the deadline for participation has passed. Of course, there are those times when your survey (or suggestion in the suggestion box) goes into a black hole and is absorbed by the universe and you never find out who answered what.

     But, let's say that you DO get the results back. You have picked the most popular choice. What do you say to yourself? Is it something like "of course it was that one, everyone should have picked that one -- it was obvious". What if you picked the least popular choice? Is your reaction a lot different? Is it more like "hmm, why did I choose that one, everyone else must have known something I didn't. I better investigate that choice and see what it really means." And, having a choice in the middle of popularity isn't so bad -- you neither puff up with pride nor do you try to find a rock to crawl under.

     It isn't always so obvious. Most of us have encountered the phenomenon of "buyers remorse". Once upon a time, I wanted a new car. I researched and looked around and finally chose a car (which I loved until it was totaled in a car crash). I was mentoring someone, at work, at the time and they purchased a new car (a totally different model than what I eventually chose) about a month before I made my purchase. They saw, and rode in, my choice of car -- and went off to buy one for themselves, trading in their one month old car. That was a very expensive change of mind.

     Buyers remorse can fall into a couple of variations. One is, as above, when you decide afterward that you should have chosen something else. Another is when you purchase something and it did not lead to ultimate bliss as you, or the salesperson, talked you into believing. You purchase a game that you ended up playing for a week and then never went back to. A glass that you used once and then put up on a shelf to never be used again. We have a very consumer-oriented economy and society, so most people are in the process of deciding what to buy -- and rarely in the process of deciding whether or not to buy.

     Of course, making decisions is not always about things. Something that I have heard is that "a good executive makes decisions and a great executive makes good decisions -- eventually". A captain of a ship who cannot make a decision will eventually end up on the rocks. One who makes decisions, but not necessarily good ones, will keep moving around to avoid the rocks but the journey may be a rough one and the destination will continue to change. But the captain who makes a decision and, if it proves to be a poor choice, admits it and changes course as soon as it is prudent -- will get to a predetermined destination in an expedient fashion.

     Note that that great executive has to do a series of things. They must make decisions. They must continuously evaluate the results. They must determine when there is enough evidence to say whether it was a good decision or a bad one. If good, full speed ahead. If bad, clean up from the mistakes (including possible apologies) and make the next best guess of a decision. No executive truly knows, for certain, that a decision is a good one (though, if not listening to others, they may make what appears to be an "obvious" bad one). It is what they do afterward that determines their quality.

Train Wrecks: When you can see it coming

 

     We have all encountered it -- though it is much harder to recognize when it is concerned with our own actions. We see something happening on the street, in the office, with our children. If the sequence of events does not change (and, often, what we observe is something that is very hard to change) then problems are going to occur. Possibly very bad ones.

     I call these "train wrecks". The name comes out of seeing a car (hopefully already abandoned) stuck on the train tracks with the train coming along. If I am watching a movie at home and I see a train wreck developing then I will often start pacing the floor. I may even turn the movie off, or pause it, to avoid seeing it unfold. (If watching in a movie theater, I grit my teeth and just wait for it to be over -- an advantage to going to see the movie at a theater.)

     The same thing happens when I am reading a book. I see an impending train wreck and I close the book. It may be a week or two before I accept the issue and I can turn the movie on again or open the book. If a book has multiple train wrecks in it I may abandon it and never complete it.

     Why do train wrecks bother me so much? Train wrecks occur in many successful movies and books and television series. It appears that it does not bother many people nearly as much as it does me.

     I have decided that it is an occupational hazard. I have been in the computer programming/architecture/management field for 45+ years. A large part of success in the field is structured thought and organization. Computers, and microprocessors, are very, very stupid -- they do EXACTLY what you tell them (barring hardware problems) -- they just do them very, very quickly. If you structure the program properly then it can do a LOT of tiny little simple things fast enough that it can appear to be doing complicated things quickly.

     So, how does that relate to not being able to watch train wrecks? Having a brain that has been taught that if A causes B then B will always come after A means that when I see A, my brain starts saying "B! B! B!" I start wanting to yell at the book or movie screen. "Don't do A. If you do then B is going to happen." Maybe it is a bit more complicated. Maybe it is "If A exists and choice B is taken then result G will happen. If choice B is not taken then result J will happen." So, I'll start screaming "take choice B!"

     But those characters in the movies or within the books never seem to listen to me.

     So, what about situations where the person CAN hear you? They potentially COULD take choice B if they wanted. More often than not (or, at least, so it subjectively seems) they ignore you. As a parent, people tend to tell you "they have to experience it for themselves". So your child doesn't take choice B and you have to be prepared to help clean up the mess.

     Occasionally -- in movies, books, or real life -- not taking choice B will NOT lead to result J. Maybe some outside event occurs (in the script or pages) to change the outcome. Maybe you were incorrect in analyzing the base condition, A, and therefore the results from the choice differ. But even if the result turns out different than expected you still spend the time waiting for the train wreck.

     So, please -- protect me, and the people around me, from train wrecks. Consider the consequences.

A divergent possibility : Reuse or Recycle is a fork in the road

    The three "R"s include the areas of Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling (with the addition of the preliminary "Rethink" of the Houseboat philosophy). But how is a decision made whether to resuse an article or to recycle it?

    Generally, this is a matter of how easy is it to do one or another. To reuse, it must be able to be used -- it must be in working order. A book is presumably able to be reused easily unless it is damaged. An old sofa might be moderately damaged -- needing a hole to be repaired or a leg put back on. A piece of electronic equipment may require a diagnosis followed by repair. There is a sliding scale of ease of reuse. No work is needed up to potentially quite a bit of work (perhaps as much as creating the item originally).

    Sometimes, repair can become part of a hobby or enterprise. People may take great pleasure in the work needed to repair a vintage car -- and the parts and labor can be considered an investment. The same can be true for people who buy a house in need of repair and succeed in renovating it such that it can be lived in, or resold, in a much better condition (and higher price).

    But, what about a toaster? There are some "vintage" toasters that can rise in value -- but most of them are "commodities" -- able to be replaced easily or replaced with "improved" characteristics. Is it worthwhile to repair? Is it a part of an internal enjoyment to repair? Possibly for some but for most it is not worthwhile. So, we hit an economic tradeoff which is very dependent on the local cost of merchandise and the local cost of labor.

    Let's say that a new working toaster is priced at $30. A used working toaster can bring $5 at a flea market or local swapmeet. If the cost of labor to repair toasters is $20/hour and it takes two hours to repair it, then making a non-working toaster able to be sold would cost $40 and only sell for $5 giving a net loss of $35. Who would decide to do that? Hopefully, the person would find a good place to recycle the toaster.

    However, if we are in another place where a new working toaster is priced at $20 and a used working toaster can bring $7, we may have a different situation. What if labor costs are only $2/hour? A non-working toaster can be repaired for $4 and sold for $7 -- giving a total profit of $3. We can see that the local prices and local labor costs make a big difference as to whether something is reused.

    Another factor that comes into play for reuse versus recycling is convenience. If I have a paperbook that is not severely damaged I have a choice for reuse by taking it to a used bookstore or recycling it via a curbside pick up. If it takes me 40 minutes (roundtrip) to take that book to the bookstore then recycling becomes an attractive option. If I have a box of books, however, the time needed to take them to the used bookstore becomes less of an overhead. Convenience and net savings come into play -- plus the value one gives to their own time.

    As an umbrella over the choices is the priority one gives to the environment. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle are the three rules but they only apply to people who care about the effects of NOT doing these things. Some may care because of the money involved with not doing it -- some may care because of the environmental costs -- and some may not care at all. What is my time worth in choices needed to help maintain a good environment? Do I care about the state of my surroundings when the next generation is growing up? These are underlying questions with individual answers.