Escapes From Apathy

I had this epiphany today, about my intent when I started this Tumblog, and how to actually achieve that intent. I want to escape the apathy that constantly hounds me and stops me from achieving anything worthwhile. This blog was supposed to inspire me and lift me out of the rut that I all-too-often return to, but it’s become a symptom instead. I waste hours every day trying to see everything that comes up on my dash and I can’t reduce that by unfollowing people because everyone of them posts gems amongst the dross. 

So far I’ve posted things that make me feel alive - animals being awesome, bikes, cars, fashion, food, truth, vocabulary, weapons, the inevitable zombie apocalypse, and beauty of the female, architectural, interior, and natural kinds. I know what I like, that was never in question. What I’m going to do from now on is post things I do and think that make me feel alive; only when I escape apathy will I post something. 

I’ll still watch my dash, but I’m going to limit the time I spend doing so. This way, I can stop vicariously pseudo-living and feeling like a failure in the world, and start enjoying my self and being a better, more successful person because of that enjoyment. 

“You’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.”

-Octave Mirbeau

I like it when someone has already articulated a thought that has lurked, nebulous, in the back of my mind for who knows how long.