Midwinter. Midwest. The sun glaring tauntingly from above and below. Lake Michigan transformed to an icy desert—a snowscape stretching flat and barren for miles. I was in a stint of apathy, from whence it came I do not know. But its presence was clear as the gaping winter sky.

I call myself a sensationaholic because, simply, I really like sensation. I like all kinds of sensation, even sensations that most would translate to pain, or fear, or sorrow, melancholy, rage…I like them all once I settle into them without reserve. Physical sensations as well, some more than others. But I like relaxing into the more uncomfortable ones, dentist appointments becoming experiments in nudging pain over the edge into pleasure.

Apathy. Well, it’s the lack of sensation, therefore the main state I struggle with—with its ennui and bland emptiness. But I’m not unfamiliar with it, it pays occasional visits. This one was an intense one—an abysmal yawn of nothingness for days. The winterscape matched it, creating an aesthetic fury within. This dull fury was the most I could summon—at the barren landscape and the cruel winter sun making me feel guilty for even being inside, when I needed to work and couldn’t rightly play in subzero temps. I have this thing when it’s sunny, like I should be out in it. So, I was pissed at this winter sun.

But the sun didn’t care. An icy eyeball severing me from all that I knew and loved. In retrospect this period of apathy was like the great divide.

My first time experiencing the place and purpose of depression was when I fell into the existential sort at age 15. That bout of depression was the companion of an identity death I was going through. At age 16 came the rebirth. Since then I haven’t had depression per se, but I have had times of depressive feelings, and I’ve always recognized the importance of not repressing, judging, or resisting, while simultaneously not identifying with, clinging to, or making stories regarding.

I recognized that depression is indeed a companion of a death—death of all types. The death of an identity, a person, a phase of life, a way of being. And then a rebirth into something new. Depression isn’t the transformative vehicle per se, but is an accompaniment to the transformation.

Apathy is a companion to depression, and I would think it worked in a similar way. Something I discovered during this period of the great divide is the particular nature of apathy (at least for me, I haven’t done clinical studies of course).

I realized that apathy was arising as an avoidance of the terror of taking full responsibility for my reality. Beneath the gauzy layers of apathy lurks a much sharper sensation, that of full-blown primordial terror. How I discovered this I don’t know, but it was a succession of stages I went through.

Apathy is a blockade to the type of terror that occurs in a baby if they’re abandoned by the mother, left in the wild to survive, having instinctual knowledge that they can’t survive on their own. That they need the mother to live.

The terror of death, but also the terror of even facing this deep-seated dependency that never really leaves us, we just mask it with layers of adulthood. Once you have the shock of seeing that preverbal dependency in yourself you cannot unsee it, and further you see how everyone—from the machismo frat boy to the prestigious intellectual is, at least partially, driven by this primordial terror, or the avoidance of.

So, when we roll into that blasé mall parking lot of apathy, we’re in fact making progress! Because we’re approaching the terror of our dependency, which is indeed the eye of the needle we must pass through to enter a new stage of freedom. The terror of that mortifying body memory—of starting our lives not being able to survive without the mother. As we grow, mother becomes replaced with our partners, religion, God, politicians, government, the academic figurehead, the CEO. We project that need outwardly while decorating it with all kinds of intellectual prowess. It’s not intellectual at all, it’s preverbal. But then there is also the terror that is just the terror, the terror that we cannot survive on our own. So to take full responsibility for reality is not a very palatable notion, even though we tend to think that’s what we’re up to most of the time.

So, back to apathy. Apathy rides up on its pale horse when we’re getting closer to evolution. Evolution out of this rote way of being that most unconsciously live (avoiding the terror, avoiding the sense of dependency). And the truth is, we don’t want to evolve. At least the part of us that is a newborn alone in the jungle. Because what that apathy leads way to, if we let it, is a full-blown taking of responsibility for reality.

Its texture is produced by the initially unwelcome revelation that there’s nothing there. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. There’s no set way, no ultimate authority to tell us right or wrong, or give us a sign or clue. No predestination. Reality is an open canvas. From the perspective of the infinite aspect of us, we are ever evolving, playing with universal materiality, which we can wield and mold any way we desire, within and connected to our greater context. We are the sun that rises on the barren landscape. We are the main attraction, we are the authority.

We choose, we make it up.

And this is an awful, terrible, dreadful revelation. At least for a part of us. The part of us that believes that it’s a death sentence, that the open field of possibilities is a hell realm.

To put it bluntly: We want mommy.

When we graduate and face the apathy that stands like a grimacing guardian at the gates, we enter a new realm. I call it the realm of cosmic play. In this realm, you realize, there is no point, but the one you make! And then you proceed to make a point.

And let me promise you, this realm is not for the faint of heart, so enter only if you dare.

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Apathy and Play

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