apathy – Aspirational Adventures

Taken from a private FB group I’m part, which is where the idea for this and the previous 2 blog post emerged from

I was hoping to say this post is, a sort of conclusion, a sort of answer if we are brave enough to do it, to the issues in the previous two posts, but as it has progressed I realise there has to be at least one more post.

One of the major reasons we finish up in jobs we’re not happy in, whether high paid or low paid, going too often for the miserable but respectable position is because we listen too often to the voices of others, even if that is not conscious. We want to fit in so we go for something that will “use our brains”, make our parents happy, earn us “enough” money which will lead to a “nice” house, lots of leisure time during which we will too often continue the patter of doing things that are subconsciously put on us by external voices. Yet in all this we are being logical. We are looking at things with logical eyes. We are not listening calmly and quietly to our hearts. In fact we shut our hearts out and then wonder why we see increases in depression, anxiety, and various other things.

Interestingly the person I mentioned in the 1st of these three posts has quit the job that was making her miserable, is now doing a selection of other jobs, is happy and is writing again.

Interestingly for myself I’ve just taken on 2 part time jobs, which I felt in my heart were the right things to do. I am back to being as busy as I was before lockdown and yet I am finding that I feel more creative, more able to write within the spaces that there are in my day. Following my heart even though it actually looks a bit full on and illogical has released me to write more than when I was trying to do things that seemed right.

In the last post the question was posed firstly by Gus Seth, then by myself, of how do we over come greed, selfishness and apathy and bring about a spiritual and cultural transformation.

The answer I think is so obvious – let go of trying to figure out things logically. Stop trying to work out how to change the system. Instead find those things that block us from listening to our hearts, be healed/set free of them and just listen. Then I believe we would do the jobs we liked, want to do the things that were needed to keep this world clean and healthy. We would care more for the planet, and each other, because we would be hearing it more. But this takes time

As a Christian I love hanging out with God. But too often in too many denominations to fit in you do have to let go of the magical mystery of God and go with your logical mind to fit in. It is not that you give up your intelligence to truly meet with God but you do have to let go of your logic to really enter into that mystery. As God says in Ezekiel,

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26

This must be on my mind because I did a post about this only last year which you can read here. Following on from that I think that when one has a heart of stone it is when one is using logic and working out what fit right, what will work properly. But we have to let God/The Universe/our therapy move us from the logical to the vulnerable heart, the fleshy heart, the heart that often doesn’t do the things society expects but in the end changes things by the energy that they release.

I also think this is why people do not rush to go to churches. They do not need another logical, rule based, fitting in with others system. They need a place where they can be free to be their genuine selves, free to fly, free to make mistakes and be picked up after. I could rant away about this for ages, but …

I also think that this freedom from logic and being able to let go of the blockages that hold us back from hearing our hearts is not just for those who meet God/Jesus, but is open to everyone. I also think that those who go to church often have not worked on freeing those blockages.

With all of this there is no logical system that will work, whether in prayer or in anything. There is a hanging out, a trusting, a deep listening, and then a bravery to go outwards into whatever comes next.

Are we willing though to listen to our hearts and not our egos?

Selfishness and Greed

Flint Castle, photographed by myself October 2023. A great example of a selfish, greedy king wanting to rule. Though at least then it was very openly selfish. Now, I think, things are more subtle, more ingrained, and are met with apathy.

I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought with 30 years of good science, we could address these problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.
Rabbi Yonatan Neri, and Rabbi Leo Dee in the Eco Bible quote Gus Seth, former dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, which I have taken from Christine Sine’s Meditation Monday – New Creation Is Emerging

God/The Universe’s timing is amazing, I think, if we let ourselves go with where our hearts are leading. I don’t normally read Godspace before taking the dog for a walk. It is usually a quick cuppa, Morning Pages, and out the door. But this one morning I decided to read Christine’s Meditation Monday post and this quote stuck with me and left me pondering the “problems are selfishness, greed and apathy.” I’ve actually struggled to find the quote because that was only that bit that stayed with me. Again trusting God/my heart that I remember what I am meant to remember.

I was just coming to the end of my walk that day when I met a friend who looked awful. It turned out his company was halving his team, even though the team was really busy, had done it quite ruthlessly, and he was hurting because he had to tell two men who were his friends and he didn’t want to. It turned out this was a move to save the company money. And the thing that hurt him most of all was that the CEO’s starting comment “don’t worry you’re job is safe.”

The reason this jumped out at me was that phrase about problems of the world being selfishness, greed and apathy. Here was just one company out of many [and it fits in with the company I mentioned in the previous post who did not care members of their staff were miserable because their desire was to make a bigger and bigger profit] only looking at profit and encouraging their employees to be greedy and selfish, as in “your job is safe”. This does not create a caring community to work in. It creates a dog eat dog, looking after self, community.

Yet what do we do about it? As the above quote says we need a spiritual and culture transformation. Not a shift, not a slight different way of looking at things, but a full on transformation.

I occasionally hear about community projects that are going on in my role as freelance writing workshop facilitator. All of them focus on trying to change their community and yet the culture of both the application process and the various areas themselves have that underlying ethos of competitiveness, which of course leads to selfishness and greed. There are also a lot of freelancers out there chasing the same pot of money. But it isn’t transformation. It is sticking plasters. And if the wound is big then eventually it will burst around the sticking plaster. This in turn actually leads to increased apathy rather than change.

But this also attitude of selfishness, greed and apathy bleeds into our shopping habits, our uses of plastics, our not really worrying where our food, clothes, electronic goods, etc come from. We want them cheap [selfish and greedy] and we don’t care how that happens [apathy]. I know for myself it is easier to click a “sign Greenpeace petition” than to move forward to changing my lifestyle. And I am someone who does try to reduce waste, shop local, only get what I need, but there are times when I just cannot be bothered.

So today’s thought to leave you with is — How do we get away from fear, from selfishness, from greed, from apathy? How do we have this spiritual and cultural transformation? Because according to Gus Seth this is the only way we are going to save our planet and ourselves.