Dear Indifference,
Of all the qualities and feelings out there, I think you’re the most humble…
For most feelings can’t be but felt and/or expressed…
Take loathing for example, we can never miss the heat that it generates within us, and we feel it once we have it.
Take guilt for another, we may not be able to identify it but it would still turn our existence into a whirlwind that revolves around its messy and painful core.
But you, you’re like the coronavirus.
Millions, or dare I say billions, have you, yet are asymptomatic, at least to their own eyes.
You seep into our souls without us knowing and you turn the knob of our aptitude to life down.
You do it very slowly, in a discrete kind of way, when our souls decide to shun off awareness for a moment and give up on understanding the situations we find ourselves in and the people we meet in life.
It’s the equivalent of our new reality of going down with the virus just because one let their guard down for a moment and ended up touching a dirty knob or getting too close to an infected person.
The only difference is that you’re too humble to show signs that we have you. Not within 14 days or even 14 years after the initial infection.
You seep purpose out of us without us knowing…
And gosh, how hard it is to realise that our newly found priorities of indulging in nothingness and being recipients of every product capitalism can throw our way is anything but living…
With you in control, we are never allowed to ask questions..
Every depth of any kind is scary…
All those big concepts of sacrifice and humility and humanity don’t seem to make sense…
And you don’t turn us only indifferent to others, but even to our own selves…
Why take care of one’s health if it would require effort?
Why try to organise thoughts when one can push them to the ever-increasing land within our souls that indifference has banished us from.
We’re only allowed to hurl our feelings and emotions across the divide, but never come close…
Indifference, I see you in the eyes of my loved ones and I can’t help but be terrified…
I can feel you covering their ears when I decide to talk them out of your ways or point to your presence…
And ironically, I can’t grow indifferent to their indifference…
I know it is far easier to notice you in those around me but near impossible for me to examine my own self and dissect you from my every thought and every action…
But hard as it may be, I hope I never grow indifferent to spotting you within…
You never draw attention to yourself…
But I hope those lines, this silly attempt of catching Bigfoot, make us finally believe that you’re there…
And may constant reflection on you lead us to understand that you’re even more deadly than the contagion that is currently wreaking havoc in the four corners of our world.