Apatheticons: The Non-Transformers

     As I grow older, and willfully wiser, my tolerance level for outright ignorance and apathy was begun to wane. In the age of so-called "Wokeness", I've never seen so many people asleep. Not sleep in a sense of being unaware; there's a lot of people who can recite Bodak Yellow, breakdown the season finale of Game of Thrones and recognize conscious posts to reshare on social media. I'm talking about sleep in a sense of inactivity. For example, I've had various jobs; I've worked as a cook, a roofer, I worked at the library in college and even worked as Dr. Frankenstein at a Haunted House before. In all of these instances I've worked with people who put more energy, effort and intelligence into avoiding their job than just doing their job! These people either constantly hid from work or they mastered the art of looking busy and not doing a damn thing. The worst part about it is that these people were oftentimes the Supervisors and Managers. It's frustrating and sometimes exhausting because now you gotta add a bunch of other duties to your job description. I'm not talking about duties as in "picking up other peoples slack." I'm just talking about the mental work of coming up with all kinds of stratagems to deal with their bullsh*t each and every day. THAT is a major issue many people have at their job and in their careers. Sometimes it's not the job or career itself, sometimes it's just the people. 

   Within the Nation of the Five Percent there exists some of the same lowly elements. At times I get tired of seeing and hearing the same bullsh*t from folks whose only claim to fame is a fancy sounding name. There's Facebook Groups I've been a part of I once deemed progressive that have deteriorated into group target practice on snapshots. We have nickel and dimers who will sell you anything to get paid, including sympathy for a loved ones death. You got people living in cities relying solely on social media to learn like they're being held hostage in the house and you have people who use children for photo ops to catfish people into believing "they're in the community." That's just some of the mess I've witnessed and none of them are doing anything significant to assist others, especially the most vulnerable members of our families and community. Although these individuals don't reflect the general mindset and body of the Five Percent, like with any group, it's important to address nonsense like this. Why? Because people need to know, including other Five Percenters, that this is not what we teach or what we're striving to achieve as a Nation. In fact, these people are what I call Apatheticons. 

   The Apatheticons are the main antagonists in the universe of the Enlightened and are usually led by one undeviating goal: to not do a damn thing. The "con", in addition to their apathy, is the self-deception and trickery they use to get out of doing anything. An easy way to identify them is the way that they move, no pun intended, on social media. They always have some criticism about what's going on yet never present their criticisms with evidence of a solution or what they're actually doing about it. It reminds me of someone I once had a conversation with who was going on and on about how our youth need a tutoring program and they would do it IF they got a grant. Mind you, we're standing right in front of the public library where citizens can reserve meeting rooms for free, a block away from the Dollar Store and this person has a decent paying job. It didn't even cross their mind that they could've just done it themselves by getting some supplies down the street, reserving a meeting room at the library and talking to parents about offering tutoring services. Hell, maybe they did. When I brought it to their attention they nodded their head in approval. Five years later they still haven't done anything and that "grant" still hasn't materialized. 

   Even though it's frustrating to deal with them, I don't want you to think that all hope is lost. In my book GAMES I outline various ways to deal with people like this, but here are some points related to Apatheticons:

• My book GAMES is a humorously sharp reference guide to transactional analysis, trick-knowledge and the psychology of people running game. In other words I teach readers how to recognize, analyze, and define various Games being played on them or Games they may be participating in such as Shoulda, Coulda Woulda. I also teach a person how to dismantle Games and replace them with behavior patterns that promote healthy relationships. You can check out Games and my other titles here: Quanaah Publishing.
• If a person, your own peer or older, is not convinced about the purpose or benefit of doing something, don't lose time searching for activity that clearly doesn't exist. They may become aware in the future, they may not, which is not a practical benefit right now. If a person cannot presently see it then don't expect them to be it. Work with those who already see the purpose and benefit of doing something. 
• I always start with three solid people when it comes to getting something done: Me, Myself and I. Once you get those three on board then it's easier to get others to add-on.
• In the age of social media people try to make a living off of selling others the idea of living. There's life coaches who don't have a team, IG models from the neck up and dudes recording videos in cars that aren't going anywhere. Something common among them, and others, is there is no practical evidence of what they're actually doing every day. Whatever their niche seems to be, research others who're in that field/industry to connect with those who are actually doing the work. An excellent example of a person who is actually doing the work is my God Brother Salim Adofo; a Multi Media Journalist, DJ, Freelance Writer, Video Producer, Social Justice Advocate, Photographer, Community Organizer and Educator in the DMV area. There's a consistency with what he shares on social media and what he's doing every day. His real life activism, outreach and visibility is a practical standard to use as an assessment tool for those who claim that they're doing the work. 
• If people aren't willing and able to put their own money up, they're not about that life right now so don't expect anything from them, right now. I emphasize "right now" because they may be willing to do it in the future. Whether they do or not, it's not our job to stand there to see if that seed grows; we got work to do right now. According to BlackEntrepreneur.com, black buying power in America was projected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2017. So it's oftentimes not about people not having money. Yes this is the case, sometimes. Most of the time it's about our priorities and what we're spending our money on.

True transformation, on a personal level, within our families and inside of our communities require us to be proactive. We must be willing and able to step up and do the work because no one is going to save us. In doing the work we must be mindful of those who simply don't want to do the work and those who work harder to not do the work than just doing the work to begin with. We must learn effective stratagems to deal with them. Our sanity, sanctuary and sustainability of our world depends upon it.

Peace,

Saladin