Pretty much as long as I can remember people have referred to me as apathetic. I spent my entire high school career pretty uninterested in what was going on, wrote an entire speech on apathy (even though, in an ironic twist of events, I cared about that quite a bit), and continued this generally unenthusiastic mindset throughout my four years of college. People constantly say to me, “Dan you literally don’t care about anything.” Fortunately, that's not the case, despite how I may act on a day-to-day basis.
The other day at work two customers came in looking for a book that they needed for one of their classes. We didn’t have it in stock, and ordering the book from our warehouse wouldn’t have been fast enough for them, as they needed to read the first section of the book as soon as possible. I responded the only way I knew how. “Well if you just need to read the first section of as soon as possible, just Sparknote it. Trust me you don’t need the book for the first day of classes.”
They laughed. My managers standing right beside me said I was a bad influence. I smiled and simply said something to the effect of, “Well, I spent my four years of college doing my own thing and I graduated Magna Cum Laude. So there's a method to my madness.” Basically, what it boils down to is a mantra of ‘work smarter, not harder.’ Flash forward a few hours later to yet another transformative walk around good ole’ Columbiana with my friend Reid.
It was just after 4th of July fireworks when we decided to trek around town for a little while longer. As usual, we talked girls, graduation, and what was next for us with our fancy new degrees. But at one point in the night, I simply said, “Do you ever just stare at the moon and realize that everything down here just isn’t as big a deal as we think?” In classic Reid fashion, he responded by referencing an astrophysicist. “Have you ever seen the Pale Blue Dot photograph?” For any of you who don’t know, the Pale Blue Dot refers to a picture taken by the Voyager I spacecraft in 1990 that inspired astrophysicist Carl Sagan’s iconic epithet, “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives…”
(You might have to dust off your screen, but that white speck towards the top/middle of the image is Earth.)
Reid then made a comment on Existentialism - the philosophical and ontological viewpoint on the meaning of life. Basically, how an existentialist views the world is that mankind makes their own choices, and therefore, creates their own existence. Reid then went on to compare this to directing your own energies and discipline to different aspects of your life. Again, basically, we each care about what we want to care about, and therefore can live fulfilling and meaningful lives on our own terms. To quote the famous poem Invictus, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul…”
So why am I talking about this? Because as a 22-year-old in today’s day and age, I find this personal philosophy to align perfectly with how I want to live my life. Now, I certainly don’t agree with existentialism in its entirety, especially when relying one hundred percent on the belief that man, himself, is the only influence on his or her life’s outcome. Unfortunately, life relies a lot on ‘who you know’ and being in ‘the right place at the right time’. I certainly can understand this as I am currently in search of an entry level career position. But when it comes to focusing your energy on what matters most to you so you can live a fulfilling life, existentialism speaks volumes - and everyone should listen up.
There is certainly a difference between caring about *literally* nothing, and being devoted to a few aspects of life that bring legitimate meaning to your days. And that is how I believe I have lived my life for the last few years, and why I want to refute the claims that I, myself, care about nothing and hate everything. I can return back to what I mentioned earlier by saying that if I truly didn’t care about anything I wouldn’t have dedicated myself to graduating both Magna Cum Laude and in the standard four-year timeline. I wouldn’t have become a speech coach and devoted as much time as I have to the kids I coach. And I wouldn’t have applied to be a writer for The Odyssey in the first place.
There is a strong shift in society, especially among young people, that shuns ‘the norm’ and embraces new, different, and expressionism. Being your own person simply for the sake of living your most meaningful life. Yet for some reason, this is frowned up for being unrealistic or impractical.
Yes, sometimes you must do what is necessary even if it is not what is 'right' or what you ‘want’ to do. But for the times that welcome individuality and free thought, why don’t we all follow and existential view of life? Why be forced to live like everyone else or conform to tradition or simply exhaust yourself pretending that you care about everything?
Not to say you shouldn’t express interest in new things or be open minded to new lifestyle choices or ways of thinking. That would be only slightly ironic of me to say as I try to introduce you to (possibly) a new way of viewing the world. But devoting yourself to things that matter to you, and not solely to other people, breeds a sense of purpose and makes those things in your life that much more genuine and fulfilling.
This free thinking is the beauty of the human spirit and should be embraced, not met with distaste and conservative skepticism. Change is scary but entirely necessary. To quote a lecture titled “Existentialism Is a Humanism" from Jean-Paul Sartre in 1945 (whom I was informed by Reid is pretty much the father of modern existentialism,) “Existence precedes essence; or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be our point of departure.”
