Every night, whenever I go down to eat dinner at home, there are always two things going on. The first thing is my mom and the maid preparing dinner on the table and the second thing is my dad falling asleep on the couch while watching the evening news. Sometimes, I sit beside my dad and just happen to watch the news beside him and I noticed that, there hardly seems to be any good news at all. At this time, I get so annoyed that I just turn the channel to cartoons or see if there's anything good in the movie channels yet at the back of my mind, I want to go back to the news and hear what is going on and at often times, I do. There isn't a night when nothing tragic happens to a person, family or a nation for that matter and I am overwhelmed by the fact that death occurs at so rapid a pace and to so many a people every single night.

But perhaps that is not the thing that surprises me the most. So let me continue.

After a while of waiting for dinner to be prepared, my mom calls us to dinner. My dad wakes up and calls my brother down from our room then we all sit down and eat. Our dinner is quiet, talking occasionally about the day we had, while the news went on about how someone had lost a loved one to an accident or how messed up our nation is becoming. We overhear the news whilst we eat and sometimes, when we hear the rare report about something truly horrifying, we would turn our heads to see what it was and afterwards, resume our dinner, talking once again of the day we had. I often wondered how many families have dinner like us or perhaps the better question is how many people just turn their heads and never get up?

We cannot ignore the fact that there are some people who just do not care as much as others about the world around them. I happen to know very well about it because I am one of those people. When one gets used to the concept that tragedies happen everyday, the easier option to take is often to just let it go or answer in the three simple words, "I don't care" because it absolves one of any attachment or any obligation to something we have no control over. The hard fact –I believe- is that if it doesn't involve us, we don’t really care about it. It's not something to be proud of. In fact, it is what's wrong with the world; more than the tragedies, more than the deaths that occur everyday and more than every bad news we hear every night in the evening news.

Not being able to care means to give up hope for an opportunity to make things better. A person who says he/she doesn't care that a person has died means he/she will not lift one finger to save anyone. Apathy is a selfish crime. It encases people in their private bubble while everyone else around them carries on with the world, coming out only to take something for themselves. I had thought being apathetic is derived from the fear of being involved, of having some sort of responsibility or obligation to do something that will end in disappointment or failure. Like, even if you donate to the poor, it won’t even measure up to the needs of everyone under the poverty line. Because of this, I chose to give up on even donating because I believed it didn’t help. That is my apathy. But now as I see that many people are having the same thoughts about issues worth looking at, it honestly scared me more than the fear from my apathy. Because if everyone stopped caring, how then can we help those in need? How then can there be a better tomorrow if everyone didn't care about tomorrow? How can the world become better if there is not one shred of hope left in every person living in it? I heard a saying once that, to do nothing in the face of need, that is evil and I believe this now as I watch the news every night.

Dinner ends then and everyone retreats back to their rooms to go on with their own lives. The next evening, the same thing will happen as does the night after that. Imagine how many people have dinner like ours, where we sit idly and just listen to the news, not even looking, turning heads occasionally but ultimately, resume our quiet dinner. It was then that I didn't want to be fearful of failure or the obligation to care. It had to start from somewhere and for me it starts by getting up and watching the news; to know what's going on and to find a way, no matter how small, to care. If a finger cannot be lifted to be help, how can we expect an arm to pull us up from the mud right?