Entertainment overcomes apathy for as long as session lasts. We watch, we care, we stop watching, and we forget we care. Apathy tempers our interest and excitement just enough so we can get off emotional roller coaster we love to point of exhaustion; a building block for apathy.

Motivator Tony Robbins tells us we only have two basic motives to do anything. We act to avoid pain or receive pleasure. If apathy seems like it is not doing anything, it is avoiding pain. Perhaps being apathetic in midst of excited, stimulated pleasure seekers also brings pleasure to apathetic person. Maybe there is no such thing as apathy, if we mean uncaring. Maybe we all care about many things at a low enough energy level; caring requires no action from us. If so, we don't overcome apathy, we just raise energy level of caring to a point which leads to action. This allows us to act with enthusiasm one day, and retire to restful caring another. Now we are dealing with law of inertia and we overcome that each time we lie down or rise up, so it is no big deal.

What Ad Busters wants to tell us is, don't be resting in front of TV when it is on. It will control us more than we realize and we are truly over controlled already. We can strike balances.

It is not that we don't care about gay Episcopalians. We just care at a low level. If you want to raise our level of caring about any particular thing, come at us with genuine enthusiasm for your project and hope we don't need our rest at that time. Timing is not everything, but it can make a huge difference in a result.