The Quiet Appeal of Being Apolitical Right Now

There’s a moment, usually around the third headline of the morning, when I feel it. Not the usual outrage or despair, but something quieter. A sigh. A sense of distance. Not because I don’t care, but because I do. Because I care too much, and it’s become too much. Too loud, too fast, too aggressive. So lately, I’ve started stepping back. Not completely, not dramatically, not with a post declaring I’m taking a break from the news. Just… gently. Quietly. Politely excusing myself from the conversation.

I still vote. I still read. But I no longer feel the need to perform political engagement like it’s a competitive sport. I no longer believe that commenting on every controversy makes me more informed. If anything, it made me frantic. Thin-skinned. Prone to parroting the same recycled phrases as everyone else just to keep up.

And I’m not alone.

A lot of people I know feel politically homeless right now. Not apathetic, not lazy, not uninformed. Just bone tired. Not because they’ve stopped believing in the importance of policy or principle, but because they’ve stopped believing in the performance of it. The theatre. The faux sincerity. The endless scrolling from crisis to crisis, outrage to outrage, each one framed as the most urgent issue of our time until we forget it completely the following week.

At some point, it starts to feel like noise. Not in the dismissive sense, but in the literal one. A cacophony. Loud. Overwhelming. Meaningless unless you shout back, and louder. You don’t have time to reflect or reason. You’re asked to react. Immediately. Publicly. Preferably with the same tone and keywords as everyone else in your algorithmic circle.

But politics used to be something you engaged with because it shaped your life. Now it feels like something you must perform because it shapes your image. You’re not allowed to say “I don’t know.” You’re not allowed to sit with uncertainty. You must take a side. Immediately. Completely. Without nuance.

And if you don’t, someone else will assign you a side anyway.

So people pull back. Not because they’re indifferent, but because they’re exhausted. Because they’ve watched friends become enemies over issues neither of them properly understood. Because they’ve seen entire reputations unravel over one poorly worded post. Because they’ve learnt, slowly and bitterly, that the loudest voice isn’t always the wisest one, but it’s the one that wins in a world that rewards provocation over substance.

Stepping back, then, isn’t apathy. It’s self-preservation. It’s a quiet act of rebellion. Not against values or causes or truth, but against the idea that if you’re not visibly upset, you must be complicit. It’s a refusal to be emotionally manipulated by people who make a living from keeping you in a state of permanent moral panic.

And it feels, frankly, like sanity.

There’s a freedom in not rushing to tweet about every political scandal within minutes of hearing it. There’s a clarity that comes from reading a story, putting the phone down, and simply thinking about it. There’s a dignity in speaking only when you’ve got something worth saying, rather than out of fear that silence will be misinterpreted as agreement.

I still care deeply. I care about free speech and the rule of law. I care about justice that’s rooted in truth rather than mob sentiment. I care about the safety of women, the strength of families, and the right to think without fear of being dragged for it. But I no longer believe that being the first to comment makes you more principled. Often, it just makes you reactive.

When you stop feeding the machine, you start to notice how contrived it is. The headlines designed to provoke, the language engineered to inflame, the repetition of narratives until they become dogma. You start to see how little space there is for grace or doubt. You notice how often the people calling for tolerance are utterly intolerant of anyone who disagrees. You see how the word “dialogue” now means “you listen to me until you agree.”

So you learn to move more quietly. You choose your battles. You notice that much of what calls itself political is, in fact, emotional theatre. And that real change often happens in places without cameras or hashtags — in school halls, in quiet conversations, in hard decisions made when no one’s watching.

Being apolitical, in the way I mean it, isn’t about disengagement. It’s about discernment. It’s about refusing to treat every opinion as a moral test, every disagreement as betrayal, every piece of news as a crisis. It’s about reclaiming your emotional energy and investing it in things that are close to you. Your friends. Your work. Your health. Your street.

It’s about asking, again and again, what matters and what merely looks like it does.

And when you begin to ask that, you see how much of modern political engagement is performative. How much of it’s driven by fear. Fear of being on the wrong side. Fear of losing social capital. Fear of being misunderstood or misrepresented. And behind that fear is a deep and growing loneliness. The kind that comes when we feel we must curate ourselves at all times. When even our politics become part of the brand.

So yes, I’ve pulled back. But not because I don’t care. Because I care enough to want to be useful. And I’ve found that I’m far more useful when I’m thoughtful than when I’m reactive. I’m a better friend when I’m not constantly enraged. I’m a better citizen when I’m not paralysed by despair. I’m a better thinker when I can sit with discomfort and not immediately need to post about it.

I still vote. I still hope. But I’ve stopped treating politics like a lifestyle. I don’t wear it like a badge or wield it like a weapon. I don’t need everyone to know what I think. And I don’t believe that silence is complicity. Sometimes, it’s wisdom. Sometimes, it’s the sound of someone thinking before they speak.

And in a world where we’re encouraged to shout first and reflect later, that might just be the most political act of all.