“What do you do when you can’t do nothing, but there’s nothing you can do?” -The Boondocks
Andrea Chiang (they/them) // Contributor
Ryan Coomber (he/him) // Custom type
Lily Jones (she/her) // Visuals
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m shaken awake by my partner, who tells me that his mom can hear bombs outside her apartment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). March 1: Iran launched an airstrike on the UAE. My partner spends hours on and off throughout the day calling his mom and checking the news. All I can do is try my best to support him.
Each day feels uncertain and unpredictable. Even if we weren’t on the brink of WWIII, there is constant civil unrest and political turmoil across the world. People are still suffering from displacement, poverty and discrimination. The cost of living is rising, the job market is terrible and there’s a loneliness epidemic that is worsening. Sometimes, it feels like there’s nothing that can be done. What can one person do?
It’s easy to feel helpless, or succumb to existential nihilism. Speaking from my own experience as a Gen Z kid from the West, I’ve had my fair share of existential crises. The burden of responsibility and being a bystander to all these atrocities, while also being expected to fulfill societal expectations for the perfect career, appearance and social life, is overwhelming. I often found myself seeking escapism, stuck in a dissociative state, and I see it in so many people, too: people doomscrolling on social media, or binging on entertainment. Rather than worrying about broader socioeconomic issues that feel impossible to fix, it feels easier to protest and pressure a movie director into changing the character design of a beloved childhood icon.
Per a survey conducted by Elections Canada, 32.5 per cent of people in the survey say they don’t vote because it feels meaningless, while 39.2 per cent say it’s because of apathy. If protests and raising our voice don’t feel enough, the issue isn’t their effectiveness, but people’s mindsets. In the last couple of decades, the voter turnout for Canadian Federal elections has been decreasing and even reached as low as 58.8 per cent before COVID-19 lockdowns. If a bunch of strangers on the internet can band together to create enough pushback against a movie production to change their character design, then is it really that hard to believe that our vote matters?
Even though the part we play as individuals feels small, it creates ripples, which can become waves. It can be difficult to see our impact because of a disconnect between a single vote and how that leads to policy affecting something like transit prices increasing and bus routes being cut. Even if we don’t see it, we feel it. By participating in our own community, our school or workplace, and social circles, you leave lasting effects.
After the news broke of the airstrike on the UAE, I spent the day comforting my partner and he thanked me for being there for him. It felt like the least I could do, but I realized I was undermining the emotional and mental labour it takes to support someone through tragedy. I was dismissing the years I worked on myself to alleviate my debilitating social anxiety and crippling mental health—the things that made it so easy to give in to apathy—to become a strong enough person to support others through similar hardship.
It’s hard to see how your effort impacts those around you, just like how I won’t ever know if bringing food to my classmates has contributed to the culture of kindness that I feel whenever I interact with them. But, sometimes, you do. I still remember how a classmate told me that hearing me talk about student issues was what encouraged them to vote in the Capilano Students’ Union election. Whether it’s treating strangers with kindness or encouraging people to vote, a person’s actions do mean something to someone.
We may protest and fight, and it feels like a losing battle—but something is changing. Change only happens unless we make it happen. The worst you can do is nothing. Even if there’s nothing you can do, you do what you can.