APATHY

Description: Apathy generally means lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. Most of us at least sometime can be guilty of it at the best of times, but at its worst, it can spell misery of what can come after because of it. On a local level, I felt it up close and personal. It is what happened to me several weeks ago around the village of Oughterard where I live.

APATHY

Apathy generally means lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. Most of us at least sometime can be guilty of it at the best of times, but at its worst, it can spell misery of what can come after because of it. On a local level, I felt it up close and personal. It is what happened to me several weeks ago around the village of Oughterard where I live.

On one of the many nature tourist trails around it while out walking the dogs, I came across two open bags of domestic rubbish dumped into water ways leading into Lough Corrib. The person that dumped it was dumb enough and kind enough to leave her name on a prescription drug box. I phoned the litter warden, and watching me do so was a retired gentleman who remarked that 'they do this all the time and nobody cares'. 'What can you do' he further lamented not noticing I was doing something. He then told me he had noticed it there since the first week of December, and after some more small talk, he was on his merry way

carrying apathy in his walk. I am sure he was a nice man but he just had not been fully awake despite all his years on this planet.

The warden came and as we both picked up the rubbish, he assured me that this woman was not a first time offender. With fines, legal costs, and other, it would roughly amount to �1500 for this disgusting affront to nature. Her name may also appear in the paper and after all that she just might get it. There is of course a wider lesson to be learnt here. Stephen Fry, broadcaster, journalist, and columnist is a fine example against apathy, but a lone voice or even a small chorus of voices is never enough.

Intelligence or the truth of what it really is, is the awakening of self and not putting the square pegs faster or better into a square hole, or more complicated theories that may spring from it. Intelligence is the wisdom and courage to ask questions, and finding religion is the end of it and reasoning itself.

Everyone hails a winner, but no one knows the price that Stephen Fry has already paid to have the luxury of recognition that he so richly deserves. He speaks and writes with great emotion and dignity that springs from past hurt, insults, and tragedy. This is a man's man in every sense of the word and every woman's partner and friend. It is said without bar room humor as if that meant anything at all.

Apathy is the survivalist manual of the fearful that wish others to do what they should be doing. It is the numbing of the spirit if not its death kneel. Life is a one way trip and we should make the most of it, so get busy in the living and let the world know you were here long after you were gone. Let your friends and loved ones know that you mattered and mattered to them. Bring out the Stephen Fry in you and sing like Susan Boyle.

Barry Clifford

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