Overcoming Apathy
by Mycenay
Rev. 3:16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
Whether you read (or believe in) the Bible or not, you have to admit there is something powerful and true about this warning on being “lukewarm.” Because when we become lukewarm we are apathetic; we’ve lost our passion for life and for what we believe in; we become numb.
It’s disturbing how the disease of apathy seems to be spreading in so many Americans, especially in our youth. How many times a week do you parents and teachers get a blasé “Whatever” in response to your questions to children, teens, or young adults? Why do so many kids today seem to care less and less about the world around them? Well, let’s look at what’s happening in the world around them.
For one, there are constant wars and rumors of war in our world. Through most television programs (a major part of American culture) we are fed fear and confusion. Viewers are constantly bombarded by ironically twisted juxtapositions of imagery—a murder/rape on the news, cut to commercial, Nike, Just Do It; a commercial asking for donations for starving children in Africa followed by an “I’d like to give the world a Coke” commercial jingle; a daytime talk show about the increase in teen pregnancies with a yogurt commercial slotted in showing a wife in a sexy little French maid’s outfit hand-feeding her husband; at the end of a raunchy MTV-produced Super Bowl half-time show Janet Jackson’s boob accidentally pops out of her skin-tight, dominatrix-like costume, and reports and commentaries roll in that people are shocked and appalled. What do you expect, America? Have you been watching 90% of what’s on television lately? Besides the sex and violence, what about the constant drug-pushing on television? The pharmaceutical companies would have you believe there’s a pill (or a patch) for your every problem—depression, impotence, smoking, obesity, anxiety, balding, insomnia… There are even drugs for your children who have a little too much zest for life and are labeled with an Attention Deficit Disorder and other social tags. The dominant culture or mainstream says you should feel no pain or stress, in fact…you shouldn’t feel.
I had two personal experiences with our pill-popping culture trying to dose me up. Once was in 1995 in Miami, Florida, the year before I moved to Sedona, Arizona. To make a long story short, I was 25 and going through a period of depression and sadness as I began to realize the pain and suffering in the world. I would break down in tears several times a week, and when asked what was wrong, I could only reply that I was excruciatingly aware that right now children are starving and enslaved, men are killing each other, women are being raped, etc., etc. Why aren’t you crying?
Of course what I was going through made people uncomfortable because it confronted their apathy and self-imposed impotence in a world that needs help. In a desperate effort for some answers and peace of mind, I conceded to see a psychiatrist—a middle-aged woman in a musty office who, after one visit, prescribed for me the antidepressant Zoloft. Zoloft is one of many antidepressant drugs widely distributed today, even to children and teens. An article by Gregory M. Lamb in the February 5, 2004 issue of The Christian Science Monitor states, “The FDA says that more than 10 million children and teens 17-and-under took antidepressants in 2002.” The article, titled “New Doubts About Medicating Kids,” addresses recent scientific evidence showing a link between the use of these antidepressants and suicidal tendencies in children and teens, and states that the FDA called a hearing to address the concerns regarding the evidence. Pediatrician Lawrence Diller from Walnut Creek, California stated in a phone interview after the hearing that “until [he] went to the conference, [he] felt [he] would be out of step with [his] colleagues not to [prescribe these drugs]”. At the hearing, presentations and testimonies by researchers showed the antidepressants to have little to no advantages to the patients and certainly not enough to warrant even the “less serious” side effects of these drugs such as agitation, insomnia, and gastrointestinal problems.
I resisted taking the Zoloft prescription for about a month after my “psychiatric evaluation” and then, when I did try it for about 2-3 months, it did not improve my mental and emotional state at all. What made the difference was God working through my pain and my circumstantial reality to lead me to Sedona, Arizona to be a change agent in the Divine Administration of Aquarian Concepts Community. You see, it’s necessary to feel, to experience pain and righteous indignation in order to get motivated to change your life and the world.
My second experience with socially-acceptable drugging was in 1999 when I broke my leg hiking atop Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona. I had surgery and was in the hospital for 4 days. Upon my release they sent me off with a 3-month prescription of a codeine-based pain killer. After 2 days at home I realized I did not need the pills—they made me feel cloudy and depressed, and any pain I had was easily remedied with a few ibuprofen. The personal experience of how doctors can (and are likely encouraged by pharmaceutical companies to) so wantonly distribute addictive prescription drugs angered me. It was yet another wake-up-call to the dumbing down and numbing out that’s being perpetrated on Americans.
Can we not see the influence of television and films that perpetrate confusion and cater to the lower (animal) nature in humans combined with unnecessary prescription drugs is creating, at best, apathy and numbness—sheep, and, at worst, psychosis and mental illness—individuals dangerous to themselves and to society? If we partake, we allow ourselves and our children to be slowly killed—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Did you know that if you put a frog in very hot water it will jump right out, but if you put it in cool water and then slowly raise the temperature, it will stay in there until it boils to death? Let’s get out of our lower animal/reptilian minds and into our higher, spiritized minds, so we know when to jump out of the water that’s getting dangerously hot. Don’t get sucked under by the tide of consumerism that creates complacency and apathy to the world around you. Snap out of it!
The 1999 film The Matrix is an excellent sci-fi analogy to our relationship with the dominant culture and the illusionary world created by the media. In the film the protagonist is offered a red pill that will show him the world as it really is or a blue pill that will allow him to stay in the illusion. You have the power to choose the “red pill,” to unplug from “the matrix,” awaken to the serious problems and suffering on our planet, and accept the challenge to change it. It’s time to wake up, America!
Wake up America
They’ve taken our real strength away
Children used to pray in the schools
Now they OD there instead
(Lyrics from the song “Wake Up America” by Gabriel of Urantia from the CD Holy City)