Do we even care anymore?

Sorry if my recent posts have been somewhat brooding as of late, that just tends to be my state of mind.  Perhaps I should take the, "If you have nothing positive to say then don't say anything" approach but then, I'd be starving all 2 readers of this blog of any legitimate content.  I'm not really here to provide any scathing commentary on the state of society and modern culture, but I feel like it's really gotten to a point where the status quo has degenerated into some form of polite apathy.  Have you ever noticed that?  I suppose I'm personally as much to blame as anyone, I do it a lot too, and as much as I want to blame my natural inclination towards introversion, I don't find it to be much of an excuse. 

More and more I find that we try to occupy ourselves with various hobbies, past-times, etc...  We involve ourselves with various clubs and associations, getting on the latest trends of the hottest hobbies, researching the best gear and the most effective techniques to do whatever it is we suddenly love doing better.  We find the hottest locations and where everyone goes locally to do whatever it is you do.  Not to say that this is a bad thing, it's not.  Perhaps it's been taken a little too far though?  Maybe I'm just being cynical and jaded, but has suddenly the thing we're doing suddenly become more important who we do it with?  Again, I'm not trying to throw out some scathing commentary on our current cultural condition, but rather just a simple observation how things seem to me.

Maybe I'm just strange, but have you ever wanted to have just a deeper conversation?  As sappy as they are, why do you think Hollywood keeps making these "soul mate" chick flicks?  Why are we so stirred by men who understand each other so as to be as brothers?  (I hope that this analogy still rings true today, despite the general degradation of familial bonds within recent times).  When I think about it though, 80% of my conversations are "small talk" or "shop talk".  "How are you doing?" has become a cliched kind of greeting where the obligatory answer is the synonym of a shrug or if you're a little more optimistic "Pretty good."  Not to say that I want to go discussing deep philosophy with the next random stranger I meet or that every other conversation has to be about something "deep", but there certainly it is a lonely existence where we cannot share in life with others.  While much of life is shared doing stuff together, lives are also matters of the heart; what is weighing upon our hearts, what is inspiring us, etc...  It's sad that our interest is only piqued when we discuss things we like to do rather than how the person we're talking to actually is.  I don't know that it's that we're so cold and apathetic that we don't care or want to care, but rather, perhaps we're just too caught up in ourselves.  Let's open our eyes up a little.