What is indifference?

There is a huge difference between being indifferent and actively choosing to use indifference, the first suggests a lack of concern or caring about anything, it speaks to character and being indifferent to yourself, your wants, needs and motivation, it is when you let your life circumstances dictate your actions and you choose by not choosing. The second is a deliberate choice, it is choosing what your values are, what you put your effective effort and attention towards, and then having indifference to anything outside of that tight circle of concern.

In the book, Reality Transurfing, Vadim Zeland describes how organisations, media, social movements, governments have a pendulum of energy that consumes the energy of their followers and even those who hate them. The pendulums consume all energy equally whether it is good or bad energy, from wars which takes the energy of nationalism and turns it in to death and destruction, or the media that turns empathy into mouse clicks. His solution to the problem of these energy draining pendulums is indifference, you deny them your energy which is the only thing that these creatures want as it the one thing they need, they consume energy to keep existing like all living things. Even if that energy is negative, organisations feed on that energy, the police would not exist if there was not criminals, hospitals need sick people and charities need poor people.

Not all pendulums are bad, however you do need to decide which you are going to give your energy towards and you should do so with the knowledge that you probably will not get all that energy back again. You are spending it not investing it when you give your energy to another, which can be fine as long as your expectations are not unrealistic, it is why so many people run out of energy when they are involved in political movement or campaigns, people feel like they have put so much energy into something to only find out that they have had such a small overall impact and they end up disheartened. The problem of course is that when two pendulums clash their energy is lost in the conflict between them, the amount of effort and energy that go into an election is huge, though the energy of both side cancel each other out, so you end up with small swings between parties.

Again this is fine as long as you are aware of the likely effect of your effort, it is far better to chose the battles that you want to fight in life, instead of stumbling into a conflict that you do not care about, especially when you would prefer or be better off concentrating on issues or concerns of your own, when you ignore your own wants, needs and growth you are reducing your long term energy and strength, every battle weakens you, you only prosper during peace. You should always try and fight your battle on the ground of your own choosing when you are ready and prepared, and there will always be battles that are important and worth fighting. The way to do that is to have indifference to those battles you do not want to fight.

There are so many ways that energy can be spent and if you are not on your guard, other people will spend it for you not deliberately and often without even noticing it, from the large to the small things such as people rushing and cutting in front of you, you can get involved if you wish, get annoyed, stand up for yourself or smile and rest in your state of indifference. Your ego might be objecting at this moment, are you seriously suggesting that I let someone get away with cutting me up? And I would answer by saying, look at the movement of energy, you are giving your energy to someone who is either uncaring or self-absorbed, is that what you want, do you want them to have your energy.

I know from experience that I have never felt good after doing so, even when I was fully justified, and that annoyed feeling has last for minutes, hours, even days. Once you put some energy into something, it is difficult to stop, it takes on a life of it's own, a pendulum of my own making which ticks away and will only fade away after a lot of deliberate indifference and reminders to myself that it has happened and I am grateful for the lesson the source of my annoyance has taught me.

The lesson being I should have been indifferent in the first place and maintain my state of grace, ease and joy. I do not want to spend my energy on being annoyed or even being right. I prefer to spend my energy on the things I care about, growing as a being of consciousness, learning about the world, being present for those I care about. I have no wish to repeat an argument in my head for the hundred time with someone I met for a moment and who almost certainly has not thought about it since, and more than that, I truly wish that they have not given it another thought, as it would be an even further loss of energy for the universe, a pointless waste and I want less waste not more. That is the power of indifference, if you practise it enough, you get to be indifferent even to yourself or at least to your ego, which is itself a pendulum, energy that wishes to continue being for want of a better word, alive or at least wanting continued existence. When you have a shield of indifference you get to sidestep so many things that want to take your energy, you get to brush past them and continue to where you actually want to go.