Apathy is a modern art.

Today, a woman asked me if I was of Hawaiian decent. I told her that although I was not born in the state, I'd spent the better half of my childhood there. She responds by asking me why in the world I ever decided to leave. I don a split-second look of awkwardness before regaining my composure, reciting the long-practiced answer that most of my family on my father's side live in the city I reside in today.

This conversation is a fairly common phenomenon between random strangers and myself, and I'm still quite baffled as to why in the world I always end up experiencing that split-second in the first place.

What I don't tell these strangers, though, is that my relationship with said family members have been and will most likely always be completely stagnant. We are all to blame for this, for we are all by nature very apathetic people: people whom you can count on for a call on your birthday and a holiday card, people who would stop and initiate mindless chatter if they ran into you at the grocery, people who would show up to your funeral if they hadn't happened to schedule a dentist's appointment that morning. We are distant from each other, and this is the state in which we have all chosen to remain. They are detached strangers related by blood, often not making a point of proving they are at all concerned towards the state of my existence. We moved here hoping to change that, yet, no higher state of respect or familiarity has been reached in these past eight years of residing here that could not have been achieved three thousand miles away with a phone call and a Christmas card.

Still, who on earth would choose a secluded living environment over being close to one's surviving family? I moved here because I believed the answer to be no one, because I thought maintaining apathy would be selfish.

I soon find that my family is filled with people who are much more selfish than I.

In life, are we meant to do what we believe is right, even if all it leaves us feeling is empty and unchanged? Are we destined to constantly take the harder path as a preemptive measure to prevent future remorse, guilt which would have been a small price to pay for our ultimate happiness? Are we forever obligated to surrender our brightest days and warmest sand for forced smiles and bad potato salad at reunions?

We ironically select the choices which make us feel miserable because they are intended to make us feel better; morally, as people. Over the years, I have learned that selfishness is sometimes necessary to achieve what is optimal for one's well-being; one should look out for oneself and weigh all sister circumstances against this factor alone. Generosity should be used sparingly, or else one would risk forgetting to display such charity to oneself.

Choosing what is best for you over what is convenient for somebody else is not always so inconceivably narcissistic.

I should learn to stop being so noble.