On Apathy and Being Cool

[TMI Warning]

I saw this on one of my favorite blogs, Thought Catalog, today. Sara David, the author of this post, uses American Apparel models (and models in general) to make a point about the aesthetics of indifference:

Like, I get it. You want to represent the “cool you” on your blog. The you that’s into pictures of topless, deadpan boys in the forest or a haunted house. But seriously? You don’t look jaded. You look ignorant. The world is shitty enough without your personal, tragic narrative of indifference.

Apathy isn’t something one should be proud of, and it isn’t something one should be striving for. Apathy is death. When I was at the lowest point of my depression, my apathy was all-consuming. Here’s the truth: it was terrifying. And I couldn’t stop thinking, “What if this is it? What if one day, I wake up, and realize that I never felt a thing?”

Playing pretend with your indifference is foolish and dangerous.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m saddened to see that what’s considered fashionable and “cool” is a way of living that, as Sara points out, those of us with depression have to work for years to avoid. How crazy is that? Think about it.

I encounter this on a much less serious level on a daily basis. Showing emotion is unacceptable. My classmates at Northwestern, all of whom are under as much stress as I am, work their asses off to avoid showing it. Because that wouldn’t be cool.

I have so much trouble making friends because I find apathetic, troublefree people boring. I find people who aren’t open about their passions, who don’t let me see their personalities, who act like nothing bothers them, boring.

For instance, here’s what some of my closest friends are like.

My best friend is a biology major. Basically every day he posts articles related to biology and the environment on his Facebook. He’s constantly sending me Wikipedia articles about some interesting species of octopus or squirrel or whatever. He gets so fucking excited about this stuff that I really don’t care much about, but have to admire anyway because of how much he loves it. He is half Japanese, and when the earthquake struck Japan recently, his Facebook page became a constantly-updating news feed of what was going on. He had no problem making it pretty damn clear how much he cared.

The first real friend I made at Northwestern is a tiny, adorable, painfully polite Korean American. And yet, when she’s stressed about something, she’ll come out with something like “MY JOURNALISM PROJECT CAN GO SUCK A DICK.” Anyone else would say, “Yeah, my journalism project is kinda hard, but it’ll work out!” I don’t want to hear that. I want to hear that you want your project to go suck a dick.

Another close friend of mine claims to hate humanity. He is a quintessential misanthrope–tall with unnecessarily long dark hair and glasses, usually unshaven, big Marx fan, always carrying around a copy of the New Yorker to read at dinner rather than talking to people,  and never hesitant to accuse you of behaving like a child or of being an idiot. He says that many people think he’s an asshole, but if that’s true, it’s better than being boring.

My newest friend lives in my suite. She is half Black and half Jewish and hilariously politically incorrect. When my previously-mentioned friend rants about Marx, she has no problem telling him to shut the fuck up. Unlike most people I’ve met here, she actually tells me about her life, even the parts that she’s not so happy with. She’s also one of the few people who tells me freely that she cares.

So these are the people I love. These people are interesting to me. Apathy, on the other hand, is not interesting. It’s fucking boring. It’s a testament to the fact that culture and fashion are so screwed up that being boring is supposedly synonymous with being cool.

I guess I’m the last person who should be giving advice on how to live, but if there’s one thing I know beyond a doubt, it’s that you should love your passions, nurture them, and share them with the world. Bring something new into the lives of the people around you. Don’t be like everyone else. Don’t be boring. Don’t stop caring. If you don’t care, you’re not really living.

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On Apathy and Being Cool
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2 thoughts on “On Apathy and Being Cool

  1. 1

    Show any bit of passion or excitement about something towards someone who’s acting apathetic and emotionally flat and you immediately lose an edge in your interaction with that individual.

    A lot of people do this. They get something out of putting others of balance or offsetting their social poise by displaying an aloof demeanor.

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