Give me something to care about...

I found myself trolling through the BBC news website today. It's one of my few means of contact with the outside world, short of getting my parents to venture out in search of information I desperately need (e.g. "What are this season's fashion must haves, Dad? I SAID WHAT ARE THE FUCKING MUST HAVES?!! Oh, for Christ's sake, WHAT ARE YOU CRYING FOR?!! I will cut you...").

Of course, I don't ask my parents to do that (replace "this season's fashion must haves" with "today's important news stories" and it's pretty much the same, however. Mo-fo's.) as I have the internet for my main source of information. That sounds like a contradiction in terms. If anything, the internet often brings forth more questions than answers (such as, "aren't facebook friends just like imaginary friends i.e. people not even you see properly?"). However, news-wise I always rely on the good ol' Beeb for updates.

I was having a look around it today and realised I was actually looking for something to be angry about, like seeking out and talking to a hippy who believes regressing to the Stone Age is progress (they're out there and they live in Witham. I'm not kidding you, this is a town whose Green Party wants people to use public transport but won't allow more commuter car parking to be built at the station because...it'll encourage people to drive. That they're going to the train station so as not to drive to London or Chelmsford is apparently a moot point).

Back to my point (I'd say to be concise, but it's because my legs ache): as my last rant demonstrates, I love to get angry. I was surfing the BBC news website to find things to react to. Let's face it, there's a lot of stuff out there: the horror that is Zimbabwe; Gordon Brown telling poor people not to be poor (an actual piece of advice my sister believes in - "if you don't want to be poor, stop fucking complaining and earn some money then." Ah, New Labour: thou hast cast a plague on both my houses...); the US and Israel wanting to bomb the crap out of Iran; Big Brother still being in existence...and so on.

What surprised me was not that I was looking for trouble. This is not a revelation - who doesn't love getting annoyed about something? Complaining is the great British pastime, but the greatest British pastime is complaining and then doing nothing constructive about it. We all need a release and getting righteously indignant about something, anything, is the way most of us do it, be it moaning about the latest rubbish sport result to bitching about the friend who just happens not to be there at the time (yeah, I'm talking about you). Being judgemental is in our blood, but maybe that's the jaded lapsed Catholic in me talking. Accepting others, now that takes work.

However, I once heard a saying and it's very true: opinions are like arseholes - everybody's got one. The problem is, I noticed I have been missing this for a few days now (an opinion, not an arse, thank you. I am well aware of that part of my anatomy having landed on it whilst rapidly descending the stairs a few days ago). I have found that if you remove yourself from the outside world, you suddenly don't think about it. Your universe becomes the four walls around you and whatever funny email forward you get sent. I forgot all about the horrendous attacks that happened in Zimbabwe that, at least a week ago, had so incensed me. I had forgotten all about the fact this country seems to be heading toward economic implosion on a Death Star level (almost - do you know how good other people's misery is for house-buying prices?). I had even forgotten that people we now refer to as "characters" were still humiliating themselves in the BB house for the bread and circus crowd.

I like to think I'm not heartless (the only true part of that sentence is "I like to think") and I'd like to think that my behaviour is common. We can only invest emotionally in so much at a time: family, friends, partner, work. I'm almost suspicious of those who cry hysterically over minor events, such as the deaths of beached dolphins - surely there's something better these people could be doing like, I don't know, not turning a depressing event into a Biblical tragedy (Hark, tis the 4 dolphins of the Apocalypse and their blowholes are the trumpets sent to level Jericho's walls!). I like dolphins, by the way, but I'll say the same thing I told my Mum when she made us go to Princess Diana's funeral: "Yes, it's very sad, but how much am I meant to cry over someone I didn't know?"

I suppose my real point is that disconnecting ourselves isn't the worst attitude to take - it's often the only option we have and we have a way of using it. My Dad suggested setting up a fake charity where you show upsetting adverts on television comprised of various, completely unrelated images (a kitten stuck in a well, a boy crying over spilled sweeties, a grown man weeping against a photocopier) and then asking people to send money to "end the suffering". The idea would be that the suffering in question would be that of the distressed, erstwhile viewer who wishes to make the nonexistent cause go away using the least demanding means - chuck some money at it. It's not a terrible thing to do. People need that money. But we only think about them for as long as it takes us to read out our debit card number. Then they quickly drift to the back of our minds behind the phone bills and costs of nights out.

So I stand here, wondering whether I only care as much as society dictates I should. Isn't it terrible, we're heading towards a recession and oh my I can't believe he used that racist term and how much cheaper are baked beans in Asda's compared to Sainsburys? (answer: lots).

Should we dedicate our lives to the well-being of others, though? Didn't work out so well for Gandhi, did it? Being able to fill your own salt shakers isn't payment enough for assassination, frankly. I think the sensible answer is "are you mad?" We walk a fine line. I knew someone who tried to save everyone he met. He was a good man, but it wore him down and pretty much killed him, in the end. You can't take on the world and expect to come out of it ok. That's what heroes do; we're just human beings trying not to fall over the edge.

I'm not going to say "the answer is to do more about stuff!" because that's hardly original. A blog isn't going to change galaxies (hey, might as well think big). I'm not going to say "the answer is to only care about what matters to you!" because then that really cuts you off from the human race. We're all so connected and yet so alienated from each other as it is. I guess my main rambling argument is this - do you ever ask yourself why you care? Not whether you should or shouldn't, but why? I have absolutely no idea why. But I do - only when I've got the spare time, though.