I’m a nineteen-year-old woman living in the 21st century in a country which, while leagues ahead of many others, often seems a bit behind the times when it comes to treating all people with dignity and respect. Naturally, I do my best to try and stay informed of the injustices that happen both in my own country and in the rest of the world. No one can be on top of everything all the time, but I think it’s worthwhile to at least be aware of injustice and informed about how good you might have it when others aren’t getting by so easily, especially close to home.
That being said, I have made a habit of occasionally “checking out,” or ignoring any news that might be upsetting or worrisome. I have the privilege of doing this, because while I have far from a perfect life, there are many injustices that happen in the world that I never have had to deal with, and probably never will have to deal with. So, yes, when I should be doing my duty to humanity and making myself aware of how bad things are sometimes, now and then I choose to ignore it all. When I should be out there trying to help those in need, I’m sitting in my room, eating food from my full cupboards and sleeping in a warm bed and living in a nice, safe little bubble of ignorance.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be perfect, noble human beings, who only work for ethical businesses and who spend their free time volunteering in homeless shelters or fundraising for those in need? Yes. It would be fantastic if the world was like this, but the fact is that it isn’t, and there is quite a lot of bad that needs fixing in it. And when I sit alone with myself for too long, reading articles and watching news broadcasts about the world outside my bubble, it can start to feel as if I don’t do enough to help. More than that, I begin to wonder if the world can ever be saved, since I know there are so many people in the world who are uninformed, apathetic, or simply not doing all that they could be doing to “save the world.”
For me at least, there is something paralyzing and frightening about studying the world’s problems too closely and critiquing my own singular abilities to fix them, and maybe this is why many people in the world are so apathetic towards what is clearly wrong. Now and then, it’s time to check out. To ignore the politics and injustice and suffering. Periodic ignorance, I think, is a good thing, because it prevent apathy but allows us to step back and ignore a problem for a while. Not enough to forget about it, but enough to come back with a little less worry, a little better equipped to move forward in dealing with our troubles, and the troubles that we want to see fixed.
