But there's horrible things that happen every day, and the extent to which people give a damn regardless of whether they post the news anywhere is, "oh, well that sucks." People say they care and yet when they have the opportunity to do something, to prove that they care, the majority of the time they do nothing. (Case in point: at one time in high school I did a bit of a research project into bullying-related suicide, and the level of indifference from the school systems and various people involved in every instance was beyond sickening. The biggest example of any lack of indifference besides the victims' families mourning ironically ended up being the adult bus driver who instead of stopping anything, decided to actively participate in humiliating an 11-year-old boy until the kid eventually hanged himself with his own sweatshirt).
Maybe that sounds like an overly pessimistic person who does nothing but complain about other people's passivity. But when you've lived a life where you have either seen or personally encountered far too many examples of people not caring you reach a point where something inside you breaks and you simply can no longer believe that people actually care about anything simply because they say they do, no matter how big or small the issue is. I know people who were and are currently being abused and/or neglected by their own families, and the people in their communities who said they truly cared and actually had the power to do something either turned a blind eye or wrote the situations off as being exaggerations. I know people, including myself, that have been irreparably damaged by others who behaved harmfully but did so under the pretense of "caring". I've seen perfectly good people be isolated and mistreated while no one lifted a finger to help them, I've had the backs of those who claimed they cared turned on me more times than I can count. People I love have been treated like dirt and I have been treated like I don't exist, and it has all been at the hands of people who said they cared. Is it any wonder then that I am incapable of seeing sincerity in anyone who says he or she cares about something or is outraged about any injustice, big or small? The words aren't enough to prove that people actually care anymore. And pretty soon, the actions won't be enough either.
I'm glad you appear to still have hope. Hold on to it. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe people who say they care about this, that, or the other really mean it. If that's true, then by all means keep caring and encouraging others to. But I am past the point of trying to believe that people are honestly capable of selflessly caring for each other. I used to be the person who could find hope in the smallest things and see good in the worst of people. But I can't anymore. What little hope I had for myself, for those I know, and for the rest of the world has all but completely died.
