"the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse..." Whitman -- O Me! O Life!/Leaves of Grass “All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” Noam Chomsky “We've forgotten much. How to struggle, how to rise to dizzy heights and sink to unparalleled depths. We no longer aspire to anything. Even the finer shades of despair are lost to us. We've ceased to be runners. We plod from structure to conveyance to employment and back again. We live within the boundaries that science has determined for us. The measuring stick is short and sweet. The full gamut of life is a brief, shadowy continuum that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is bleached. We hardly know how to doubt anymore.” Richard Matheson ARTIST’S STATEMENT: I’m concerned that many folks right now are rightly feeling anxiety despair lack of direction. What do we do next? Are we alone? Can something be done? The current climate is serving up a big cold ugly dish of fear and even stout-hearts are worried, unsure. The Ugly, the Apathetic, the Anxious seem to have the upper hand. I asked eight friends to be part of this shoot because I believe their lives and spirits embody Graces or Virtues that will see us through, that are powerful medicine against the dis-ease in this land--and that—in making this photo-story—we can offer a narrative of hope and encouragement. The enemy I think we’re all confronting in this Age is Fearful Apathy. And apathy’s a strange enemy: it’s not actively malicious yet it’s incredibly destructive. It lurks inside all of us, sometimes dormant, sometimes in full bloom. I believe—in myself—it is often fear trying to hold me still so I don’t get noticed, don’t break the status quo, don’t risk. It forces itself to be content with mediocrity. It may self-medicate with infotainment or self-seeking gorges or substances. It’s indifferent to others. It’s cynical desiccation. It refuses to look around. It refuses to engage. It refuses change. (The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. Charles de Montesquieu) I think the Apathy in folks believes that if it can “help” them to a state of NOT FEELING, they won’t suffer. It may be trying to keep us safe (and endangering us in the process). Ignore life, ignore harm, ignore injustice, ignore risk and maybe it will go away. The word origins of Apathy: early 17th century: from French apathie, via Latin from Greek apatheia, from apathēs ‘without feeling,’ from a- ‘without’ + pathos ‘suffering.’ Many virtues and passions counterbalance Apathy and they can all, I believe, be summarized with the word Action. I want folks to remember that their everyday actions (the force of your being, your presence, the virtues and passions *you* embody) not only make a difference, but can move, can stir, can call forth Apathy from his stasis back to life. And if you have found a tendency toward Apathy in yourself, and wish to know how to fight it, ponder taking Action--any action--and see how quickly Apathy fades away. Make something, do something, speak, care for someone else, read something that stirs your brain, talk to an elder, play, create, fix what you can when you can where you can. These are tested cures for stasis and apathy. THANK YOUS: The Passions portrayed in this group shot are, from left to right: Joy/Childlikeness (Shelton McElroy), Human Connection (Jessica Pendergrass), Lovingkindness (name withheld by request), Stewardship of the Earth (Brianna Nicole Harlan), Speaking Truth (Rani Newman), Righteousness/Justice (Alexis Stix Brown), Wisdom/Dignity (Mattie Jones), and Creativity (Ron Whitehead). Bill O’Donovan, Jr. portrayed Fearful Apathy (though he is anything but apathetic). My heartfelt thanks to these dear souls for taking a big chunk of a Saturday to indulge my desire to make this shot. Also very special thanks to Victoria Snidely Powell for providing Human Connection’s knitting, Ronnie Paige for the fairly massive undertaking of carrying props and setting them in place and Angie Rice Vittitow for (literally) weaving the connecting thread between the players and helping make sure the props stayed in place during the shoot. The two books in the shoot are "The Book of Psalms" (a translation with commentary by Robert Alter) and "Conservatism is Un-American & Other Self-Evident Truths" by Jerome Nicolas.