Still working this one out, so put your water wings on and swim at your own risk.

Everything; people, policy, events, entire cultures even; in the entire universe can be divided into two categories: the things you care about and the things you don't care about. Pretty agreeable, yes?

That being said, you really only care about the things you act to effect change in. Hard to swallow? That's what she said. In all seriousness, this assumption makes us all squirm; but it's true. If you don't try to do anything about it, you do not care. At all. Example:

If you really cared about starving people in the Third World, you would sponsor a child, join the Peace Corps, or regularly send boxes of canned goods to Ethiopia. If you are not acting to effect change, you really don't care. I know, you want to argue. Well, the only reason you want to argue is because you feel guilty; or more appropriately, you have been made to feel guilty. Which kind of leads into the next step.

Now, because the things we can care about are limited by the time we have to act on each and every one of them; everyone ends up with a different list of things that matter. The assumption here is that majority rules - the thing(s) that the most people care about are the things that get done. This assumption is outdated. Technology allows anyone anywhere to get in touch with a gruop of people who care about the trivial insipid shit that they consider important. Granted, if there are only 500 people in the world who want to save the (insert your own trivial insipid cause here); you may not be able to get much done. But it's not about that really, it's about acting on the things you care about.

Basically, I'm tired of people pretending or saying that they care about shit that they don't really care about. It's really annoying for someone to say they care about the environment while they dump their recycleables into the trash can. If you cared, you'd find a way to do something that really made you feel like you were doing your part. You'd buy CFL's, you'd compost, you'd drive less, you'd contribute significantly to organizations, etc. If you gave a shit about starving people, you'd enlist your spare time in doing something to forward their cause. If you were truly worried about the white man being overrun by impure races, you'd be out there burning crosses, okay? They don't burn themselves!

Of course, we can't all care about everything; there's just not enough time to act on it all. We prioritize what matters most, and the things that don't matter don't get done. We care very much about our families, which means we work a steady job, come home each night and spend time with the kids and spouse. Hell, between those two activities alone, there's not a whole lot of time to go around cleaning up the entire goddamned world of all the stinking shit it's full of.

Hmm. I . . . uh; I think I just lost my train of thought. I was moving at a pretty steady clip, and the fucking trail just disappeared into the undergrowth. I retraced my path, and I can't tell if there's a happy ending here or if a bunch of people just get screwed. Well, fatigue has set in too.

Seriously. Anyone got a compass, map, a signal mirror? Anything?

If I'm not back in a week, send a serach party.