What is it like to not feel? To be a spectator, possibly the only spectator, to the theatre of the times? Water is drying up in the wells, plastic is piling up. Kids are planting bombs between heady puffs of smoke. Kids, whose birthdays remind their mother of her rape. Innocent animals are slaughtered so you can order a meal you can’t finish.

People are out on the streets demanding rights to right the wrongs. Rights for the displaced, rights to free speech, rights to choose whom to love, rights to protest the denial of rights to protest, rights to wear what they want, rights to offend, their rights versus the rights of the others. The right versus the left. Whose right is more right?  

Every column inch taken up, every street corner busy. The song of protest, the dance of solidarity, the silence of rebellion, the walk of dissent. They speak up in verse, they speak up in prose. Speak up for the gays, the jews, the rationalists, the whistle-blowers.

Speak up.

They are loud. They coo out of my music, they headline my newspapers. They stare at me from movie posters and appeal to my conscience through my literature. They won’t let me be till my voice rises with theirs. But it won’t. Why won’t it? Do I not have a heart? Does it not bleed?

Truth is, it doesn’t. I worry about the rising pile of dishes in the sink. I fret over a leaking pipe and a malfunctioning motor. The yard is unkempt and the bike is covered in dust. If their trays aren’t refilled, the cats will go hungry and if the bills aren’t paid today, my house will go dark.

I don’t ­run long distances, I don’t meditate, I don’t bake cupcakes and I don’t click sepia-tinged pictures. If you looked me up on Twitter, you would find that I am not even a writer. But I am happy to be alive. I wake up and smile, knowing that the sun is out. I don’t care about forced conversions as much as I care to know if my cricketing God indeed clicked a selfie. I am not half as outraged by the RSS or the ISIS as I am by the Silk Board traffic that won’t let me get home. Because I need to get home and catch up on today's Facebook outrage. You see, I am the guy without a cause.

All those causes up on the store shelves and yet, I'm not picking any.