Meditations on guilt, apathy, distancing and noninterventionism

• 11 Jul, 2020
• Paisley P. Peinforte
• Hits count 1528

THERE ARE TIMES I am requested to intervene or intercede in matters in which I am not directly involved, in order to prevent someone from doing something stupid or keeping company with a bad crowd. 

I greatly, greatly dislike getting involved in other people's affairs. It's one thing if someone is about to get hit by a truck and I yell at them to get them to avoid getting hit, but if someone is engaging in unhealthy online activity  I just don't feel like it's my place to get involved. Are they actually going to listen to me, or actually just be hardened to press on with what they're doing with even more ferocious intensity? In my experience, it's the latter, and I'm tired of having to deal with the inevitable shitstorm when I open my mouth. 

I'm a quiet person who keeps her own counsel, and I respect the right of someone to do the same unless they're directly hurting someone else or me. But if someone is reading stupid conspiracy theories online or getting hard over reading Twitter controversy, I just roll my eyes and scroll on. I don't like stepping into minefields. 

And I feel like shit about it sometimes. 

It's a "but for" situation-- "But for someone intervening maybe someone could have been saved from becoming radicalised". if that's true, then I'm guilty of not stepping up and helping avert a tragedy when I had the chance. 

Am I selfish for just wanting to stay the hell out of it? I'm tired. The world wears me down and the last thing I want is to pick fights with people trying to bloody "save them" from themselves. My limit is saying "hey you may want to be careful about this thing," but if I'm rebuffed I'm not going to push it. 

I don't know if it's my introversion or my general apathetic nature to internet stupidity, but I seem to be the only bloody person in my social circle that can just let this stuff roll off her back- but I don't know if that's a defect or not. 

I sometimes feel like I should feel more impassioned about it, as others seem to. But I'm not wired that way when it comes to situations like this. I'm not a proactive intervenor. 

And I physically wince when I see other people chomping at the bit to "call out" other people on their activities. I feel there's a fine line between constructively engaging and just creating a situation that's even more combustible in the name of doing "something" about the situation. 

I've been called cold and calculating when it comes to things like this, and maybe I am. I don't want to be uncaring, or negligent, but I worry that maybe I just... am. 

And that sucks. 

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