I hear what you are saying, and there’s some strong points you’re making. So, what I’m about to say is not necessarily an argument to your essay.

I think there’s a difference between consciousness and awareness. Or between consciousness and choice. And ‘empty mind’ is not ‘no mind.’ Because something is still present during all those non-activities you describe.

So we can, I’ll suggest, look at consciousness as some kind of stuff. Call it the stuff that the mind works with. Like clay or play-dough, it’s malleable and can be made to go this way or that. And I’ll suggest that it’s the mind that determines that, not the clay. So even if we were to take the clay away, the mind remains. As the saying goes, it’s “in the mind of the beholder.”

As I see it, these troubling things you point out are due to choice, or irresponsibility, or plain old self-centeredness. Which to me suggests the problem is not so much with consciousness as it is with the mind.