At our Opticon conference closing keynote, our team invited Mae Jemison, a well respected and renowned African American female engineer, physicist, and former NASA astronaut, to speak. During her talk, she mentioned this famous quote from Helen Keller:

“Science … has found no remedy for the worst (evil) of them all — apathy of human beings.” – Helen Keller

Apathy. Apathy is evil. This resonated with me a lot, particularly in recent years when I’ve grown frustrated at the indifference or lack of care when it comes to all the terrible things happening in the world, whether it’s President Dipshit’s reign over the U.S., innocent black men getting shot and killed, the Amazon being on fire, and children being locked up cages. How can you sit around and do what you always do, live your life in your bubble, when all these things are happening around us that are just eating away at the world around us? If you aren’t protesting, raising money, and making your voices heard, then what are you doing to make the world we live in a better place to be? I feel terrified sometimes reading the news today, thinking.. is it a selfish thing to want to bring a child into this world, where even the vegetables we are eating have less minerals and vitamins than they used to because the soil they are being grown in has just been fully exhausted? I don’t know. But I think about it a lot and am concerned. While no individual can change these things on her own, it’s individual actions that can be bits of difference along the way. And it all starts with discussing the issues at hand.