How Our Apathy Is Destroying Our Country: A Friday Parable

Apathy, the mindset and act of simply not caring. It’s not so much an act of spite but an act of obliviousness. In fact, according to one quote, the opposite of love is not hate because even when you hate someone, you still think about them, right? However, when you’re apathetic towards someone, you simply don’t know and don’t care about them at all. Now look, I don’t really mind if you don’t care about trivial things because, after all, they’re only “trivial” things. However, what aggravates me to no end is the way a lot of you seem to care more about the trivial things in our country rather than the more important issues we have to address.

From the brutal slaughter of the Lumads, the loss of our western islands to the People’s Republic of China and all the way to more powerful and devastating natural disasters that may come our way in 2016, all of these have to take a backseat to stuff like AlDub, Vice Ganda jokes and another (*sigh*) Manny Pacquiao match this year. Of course, if one were to ask me, there’s nothing really wrong with enjoying the latter three I mentioned but one has to wonder why they take precedence over the first three. It’s almost like thinking that a car’s paint is more important than the gas that actually fuels it. Oh well…

Anyway, I’ve probably talked about apathy more times than I can care to remember. So no, this time, I’m not going to write an article about apathy because it seems I’ve already written all I could about the topic. However, that does not mean I’m not going to write about it. Instead, since some of you have taken to calling me a “prophet” (the irony of which still makes my sides hurt), I’m just going to tell you a parable, just like Jesus, Ezekiel and other big figures in the Bible. Besides, good storytelling isn’t just informative, it can also be entertaining…

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Once, in a small town, there lived a family of seven people. A mother, a father, their three sons and two daughters. The mother and father of the family were very active in their community and always did what they could to help others. They were good people and the town came to respect them as model citizens.

But then, one day, something terrible came to the town. It seems that a vicious serial killer had found his way into the town and begun preying on its children. He would abduct children from their homes and take them to the nearby woods where he would brutally kill them in unbelievably gruesome ways.

When it seems that the town police weren’t enough to contain the threat, it was decided that a good number of the locals would be deputized so that they could help in the effort to finally arrest the vicious murderer. Among those to be chosen were the parents of the family of seven. The father had an outstanding record as a soldier and the mother was well-known as a huntress.

However, knowing that their children could be vulnerable in their absence, the parents did leave something behind to protect their children. They left behind firearms and a large dog to their eldest son, believing that he could protect his siblings if anything ever went wrong. What they didn’t know or wouldn’t accept was that their eldest son had plans of his own and that he was hoping to take advantage of his parents’ absence.

Then, when the parents left, the eldest son immediately went about selling the firearms and even the dog they left behind for personal gain. When he had gained enough money, he used it to buy himself useless things and even buy his eldest sister, who was on to him by the way, new gadgets to bribe her into being quiet. As it turned out, their parents would not be back for a few days as the trail of the killer wound through the woods and was extremely difficult to track. With that, the eldest son encouraged his younger brothers and sisters to simply have fun while their parents were gone. What they did not know was that the eldest son was selling off their food and belongings as well to further enrich himself.

And then, one night later, a phone call came to the house. While the five siblings were busy partying without their parents, the youngest son went and answered it. It was their parents and it seemed that they had bad news. The killer was apparently in the town again, searching for victims.

The youngest son, finally coming to his senses, decided to warn his siblings about the coming danger. Unfortunately, they were caught up with what they were doing. The eldest son was too distracted by the amount of money he was earning from selling his family’s prized possessions. The eldest daughter was too caught up in taking selfies of herself with her new gadgets to listen to her brother. The middling son seemed occupied with his new shoes and other accessories he was using to attract girls. Meanwhile, the youngest daughter was too engrossed watching her favorite teleserye on TV to pay attention to anything else.

Then, through the window, the youngest saw a dark figure entering through the gates of the house…

***

I’m going to leave my story there ladies and gentlemen. Actually, despite my cynicism, I like happy endings. I like stories ending with the good guys winning the day and the bad guys vanquished. I prefer tales where the heroes do everything they can so that their loved ones can be kept safe and happy. To be honest, I can only hope for the best for the five siblings mentioned in the story. I want them to live and win the day as well.

However, you know better than I do the kind of odds that are stacked against them. So no, I’m not going to add anything else to the parable I just wrote. If it has an ending, I’ll leave it up to you dear readers on how things should turn out.

Grimwald

I HAVE RETURNED TO LAY WASTE TO OUR ENEMIES!