I Don’t Care

 As I journey through a bookstore, I like to think that within those neatly bound pages lay intellectual, emotional, and physical treasures pleading to be discovered. While scanning books bearing titles that attempt to catch my attention (much like this blog’s title), I find it humorous that I consciously avoid certain book topics that many would deem fundamental.

For some reason it seems that we, as a society, mirror my actions in the bookstore by shying away from a broad range of topics.  We are endowed with the power to know-all, in the sense that we have the resources (i.e. internet and libraries) to learn about any country, learn about any subject, learn about literally ANYTHING. Given that power, we sadly choose ignorance with tales of dramatic space warfare, heart-wrenching love stories, or magnificent magical adventures.

Don’t get me wrong, I too have read Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and watched the newest Star Wars movie, but why?  Why am I spending my time with such trivial pursuits rather than educating myself about current medical treatments?  Why am I not watching the newest documentary about how to fix our decrepit education system?  Why do I not spend the time reading the research about pulverizing my carbon footprint? Why why why?!?!

This blog post was titled “I Don’t Care” because I, like so many of you, choose to stick my head in the sand and avoid crucial topics. I choose to watch those fictional tales without any hope of self-betterment (unless I start on a magical quest whereby I am well versed on how to succeed).  Instead of watching all of those movies or reading all of those books (those=frivolous to learning), I could have learned a foreign language that would allow me to connect with individuals from other countries (instead we have to rely on technology like this).  I could have studied for my EMT certification to help those who call 911 on one of the worst days of their lives. Instead, I took a magical adventure.

There are distinct benefits of reading that can be gleaned from fictional tales such as vocabulary, grammar and writing technique; therefore, I would like to critique non-reading and non-movie-watching time waste.  We are addicted to social media like many are addicted to drugs and alcohol and we choose to squander our days with “Netflix and chill” attitudes (the popular culture reference to friends, overly comfy clothes and sometimes alcohol while watching movies or TV shows).  These are just two of the countless examples highlighting our choice to not tackle the tough subjects that better us, but instead our choosing to fall into the mental death-trap of nonsensical actions.

A major counterargument for this post is the well document fact that fictional stories are remembered more than nonfictional texts; therefore, we can recall more from fiction over the longevity of life.  Such an argument leads me to agree that there are fiction books or historical fiction books that better an individual, but I fear that such books are not read.  For example, 50 Shades of Grey was one of the most read books (and one of the highest sold series) of all time; the author was even named in Times’ top 100 most influential people in the world in 2012. As fictional book series, we know that the trilogy will be remembered more so than Feynman’s three volumes of lectures on physics, but what are we really learning from such a read?

Actually, please don’t answer what you glean from 50 Shades of Grey because I frankly don’t want to know.

Many have deemed “will power” to be a muscle that needs exercised like anything else; therefore, maybe society needs to slowly build up the mental strength to turn off mind-numbing television and pick up an important read.

As a final note, I want to clarify that with the vast quantity of information at our fingertips, it is literally impossible to let our attention drift to all the subjects we find interesting or essential. Therefore, I am not attempting to discredit people who are torn between the myriad of possible topics, but rather I am concerned over those who like to keep their ears submerged well into the sand.